Disorders of personality |  |
Chapter OutlineDisorders of Personality
The Concept of Disorder
- Psychological disorder
- Pattern of behavior or experience that is distressing and painful to the person
- Leads to disability or impairment in important life domains
- Associated with the increased risk for further suffering, loss of function, death, or confinement
- Abnormal psychology: Study of mental disorders, including thought disorders, emotional disorders, and personality disorders
What Is Abnormal?
- Statistical definition: Whatever is rare, not frequent, and not statistically normal
- Social definition: Whatever society does not tolerate
- Statistical and social definitions are tied to changing social or cultural norms
- Psychologists thus look within persons, inquiring about subject feelings and thoughts
- Psychopathology: Study of mental disorders
- Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th ed. (DSM-IV): Widely accepted system for diagnosing and describing mental disorders
What is a Personality Disorder?
- Enduring pattern of experience and behavior that differs greatly from expectations of a person's culture
- Disorder is usually manifested in more than one of following areas: Thoughts, feelings, how a person gets along with others, and the ability to control own behavior
- Pattern of behavior is rigid and displayed across a variety of situations, leading to distress in key areas of life such as work and relationships
- Pattern of behavior typically has a long history in a person's life, often back to adolescence or childhood
- Pattern must not be attributable to drug abuse, medication, or other medical condition
- Varieties of personality disorder
- DSM-IV lists 10 personality disorders, classified into three groups
- Erratic group: Persons with these disorders appear erratic, emotional, and have difficulties getting along with others
- Includes antisocial, borderline, histrionic, and narcissistic personality disorders
- Eccentric group: Persons with these disorders appear odd, eccentric, do not get along well with others
- Includes schizoid, schizotypal, and paranoid personality disorders
- Anxious group: Persons with these disorders appear anxious, fearful, apprehensive, and have trouble with social relationships
- All personality disorders involve impaired social relations
- Categories or dimensions?
- Categorical view
- Either the person does or does not have personality disorder
- Disorders are viewed as distinct and qualitatively different from normal extremes on some trait
- Dimensional view
- Personality disorder is viewed as a continuum that ranges from normality at one end to severe disability or disturbance at other end
- Culture, age, and gender: The effect of context
- Must take into account person's culture, age, gender before defining behavior as revealing personality disorder
Specific Personality Disorders
Erratic Group: Ways of Being Unpredictable, Violent, or Emotional
- Antisocial personality disorder
- Little concern for others
- Impulse
- Easily irritated and assaultive
- Reckless and irresponsible
- Glib or superficial charm
- Callous social attitudes
- Lack of guilt feelings or remorse
- Indifferent to suffering of others
A Closer Look: Theories of the Antisocial Mind
- Borderline personality disorder
- Instability of relationships, emotions, and self-image
- Fears of abandonment
- Aggressive
- Prone to self-harm
- Strong emotions
- Histrionic personality disorder
- Excessive attention seeking
- Excessive and strong emotions
- Sexually provocative
- Opinions are shallow
- Suggestible
- Strong need for attention
- Narcissistic personality disorder
- Need to be admired
- Strong sense of self importance
- Lack of insight into other peoples' feelings or needs
- Sense of entitlement
- Feelings of superiority
- Self-esteem appears strong, but is fragile
- Envious of others
Eccentric Group: Ways of Being Different
- Schizoid personality disorder
- Detached from normal social relationships
- Obtains little pleasure out of life
- Appears inept or socially clumsy
- Passive in the face of unpleasant events
- Schizotypal personality disorder
- Anxious in social relations and avoids people
- Appears "different" and does not conform
- Suspicious of others
- Odd or eccentric beliefs, such as in ESP or magic
- Thoughts and speech sometimes disorganized
- Paranoid personality disorder
- Distrustful of others
- Misinterprets social events as threatening
- Harbors resentment towards others
- Prone to pathological jealousy
- Argumentative and hostile
Anxious Group: Ways of Being Nervous, Fearful, or Distressed
- Avoidant personality disorder
- Feelings of inadequacy
- Sensitive to criticism
- Restricts activities to avoid embarrassments
- Low self-esteem
- Dependent personality disorder
- Excessive need to be taken care of
- Submissive
- Seeks reassurance from others
- Rarely takes initiative, rarely disagrees with others
- Does not work well independently
- May tolerate abuse from others to obtain support
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder
- Preoccupied with order
- Strives for perfection
- Devoted to work, seeks little leisure time or friendship
- Frequently miserly or stingy
- Rigid and inflexible and stubborn
Dimensional Model of Personality Disorders
- Distinctions between normal personality traits and disorders are in terms of extremity, rigidity, maladaptiveness
- Parallel with chemistry: A little of this trait, some of that trait, and amplifying to extremely high (or low) levels, resulting in specific disorder
- Dominant model currently is categorical model (DSM-IV)
Causes of Personality Disorders
- Abnormal psychology and psychopathology are highly descriptive disciplines
- Some theoretical work on causes of personality disorders
- Most work emphasizes either "biological" causes or "social" causes of personality disorders
Summary and Evaluation
- Hallmark of psychological definition of abnormal is anything that prevents a person from having satisfying relationships or from carrying on productive work
- Sigmund Freud taught that the sign of a mature adult personality is the ability to love and to work
- All of the personality disorders refer to symptoms that cause problems with relationships, work, or both
- Personality disorders refer to enduring patterns of experience and behavior that differ greatly from the norms and expectations of a person's culture
- Disorder shows up in how a person thinks, feels, gets along with others, and the ability to control own actions
- Pattern is displayed across situations, leading to the distress in self or others in key areas of life such as love and work
- Disorder typically has a long history in a person's life
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2002 McGraw-Hill Higher Education