General Characteristics of Personality Disorders:
-the patient’s way of interacting with environment, people and with themselves is pretty consistent over time and is not caused by stresses, drugs, other medical/mental issues.
-starts early around time of adolescence or early adulthood
-when they become inflexible and thus unable to adapt to environment, the disorder becomes apparent. The patient never realizes that he/she has a personality disorder.
Types of Personality Disorders:
I. Cluster A Personality Disorders: patients prefer social isolation and have an increased incidence of schizophrenia (may have milder variants of it and have increased susceptibility to develop schizophrenia).
a. Paranoid Personality Disorder: extreme distrust of others, bearing grudges, hypervigilant, etc.
b. Schizoid Personality Disorder: social detachment with restricted affect
c. Schizotypal Personality Disorder: problems with perception, odd behavior or thinking, difficulty in holding close relationships.
II. Cluster B Personality Disorders: patients have dramatic, disruptive, or irrational behavior
a. Antisocial Personality Disorder: patient violates other people’s rights, is deceitful, irresponsible, and lacking remorse.
b. Borderline Personality Disorder: instability of affect, self-image, relationships, and impulsivity.
c. Histrionic Personality Disorder: emotionality and attention seeking
d. Narcissistic Personality Disorder: grandiosity, lack of concern and empathy for others, likes to be admired.
III. Cluster C Personality Disorders: the “worried” type. Very anxious people.
a. Avoidant Personality Disorder: avoiding situations of contact with other people, worried about being rejected, scrutinized, or embarrassed.
b. Dependant Personality Disorder: need to be cared for, submissive and clinging behavior.
c. Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder: too concerned about order, control, and perfectionism to a point that it is so inflexible that it can paralyze decision making and make it difficult to complete tasks.