Chapter Outline

Chapter Outline

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  Symptoms of personality disorders can be viewed as maladaptive variations within the domains of traits, emotions, cognitions, motives, and self-concept
  
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  Personality disorders as maladaptive variations or combinations of normal personality traits
  
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  Several personality disorders involve maladaptive variations on common motives, especially power and intimacy
  
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  Cognitive processes can become distorted in personal disorders
  
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  Several personal disorders include extreme variations in experienced emotion
  
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  Most personality disorders include distortion of self-concept
  
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  Social relationships, especially interpersonal and sexual behavior, frequently disturbed or involve maladaptive patterns in personality disorders
  
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  Biology forms a building block of several personality disorders
  
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  Disorders of personality can provide insight into the normal workings of personality
  

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  Psychological disorder
  
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  Pattern of behavior or experience that is distressing and painful to the person
  
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  Leads to disability or impairment in important life domains
  
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  Associated with the increased risk for further suffering, loss of function, death, or confinement
  

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  Abnormal psychology: Study of mental disorders, including thought disorders, emotional disorders, and personality disorders
  
  
  

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  Statistical definition: Whatever is rare, not frequent, and not statistically normal
  
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  Social definition: Whatever society does not tolerate
  
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  Statistical and social definitions are tied to changing social or cultural norms
  
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  Psychologists thus look within persons, inquiring about subject feelings and thoughts
  
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  Psychopathology: Study of mental disorders
  

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  Widely accepted system for diagnosing and describing mental disorders
  
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  Because society standards change over time, and because new research accumulates, the DSM undergoes revision from time to time
  

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  Enduring pattern of experience and behavior that differs greatly from expectations of a person’s culture
  
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  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
  
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  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
  
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  Pattern of behavior typically has a long history in a person’s life, often back to adolescence or childhood
  
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  Pattern must not be attributable to drug abuse, medication, or other medical condition
  

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  Culture, age, and gender: The effect of context
  
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  Must take into account person’s culture, age, gender before defining behavior as revealing personality disorder
  

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  Antisocial personality disorder
  
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  Little concern for others
  
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  Impulse
  
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  Easily irritated and assaultive
  
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  Reckless and irresponsible
  
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  Glib or superficial charm
  
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  Callous social attitudes
  
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  Lack of guilt feelings or remorse
  
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  Indifferent to suffering of others
  

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  Borderline personality disorder
  
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  Marked by instability: relationships, behavior, emotions, even images of themselves
  
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  Shifting views of themselves
  
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  Strong emotions
  
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  huge vacillations in both mood and feelings about the self and others
  

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  Histrionic personality disorder
  
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  Excessive attention seeking and emotionality
  
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  Inappropriately seductive or provocative
  
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  Physical appearance is often very important
  
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  Express their opinions frequently and dramatically, however their opinions are shallow
  
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  Display strong emotions in public
  
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  Difficult to get along with, due to their excessive need for attention
  
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  They crave excitement and novelty
  

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  Narcissistic personality disorder
  
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  Need to be admired
  
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  Strong sense of self importance
  
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  Lack of insight into other peoples’ feelings or needs
  
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  Sense of entitlement
  
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  Feelings of superiority
  
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  Self-esteem appears strong, but is fragile
  
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  Envious of others
  
  
  

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  Schizoid personality disorder
  
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  Detached from normal social relationships
  
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  Obtains little pleasure out of life
  
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  Appears inept or socially clumsy
  
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  Passive in the face of unpleasant events
  

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  Schizotypal personality disorder
  
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  Anxious in social relations and avoids people
  
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  Appears “different” and does not conform
  
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  Suspicious of others
  
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  Odd or eccentric beliefs, such as in ESP or magic
  
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  Thoughts and speech sometimes disorganized
  

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  Paranoid personality disorder
  
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  Distrustful of others
  
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  Misinterprets social events as threatening
  
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  Harbors resentment toward others
  
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  Prone to pathological jealousy
  
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  Argumentative and hostile
  

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  Avoidant personality disorder
  
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  Feelings of inadequacy
  
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  Sensitive to criticism
  
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  Restricts activities to avoid embarrassments
  
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  Low self-esteem
  

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  Dependent personality disorder
  
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  Excessive need to be taken care of
  
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  Submissive
  
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  Seeks reassurance from others
  
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  Rarely takes initiative, rarely disagrees with others
  
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  Does not work well independently
  
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  May tolerate abuse from others to obtain support
  

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  Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder
  
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  Preoccupied with order
  
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  Strives for perfection
  
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  Devoted to work, seeks little leisure time or friendship
  
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  Frequently miserly or stingy
  
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  Rigid and inflexible and stubborn
  

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  Prevalence refers to total number of cases present in given population during a particular period of time
  
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  Obsessive Compulsive personality disorder most common, with just over 4% prevalence rate
  
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  Next most common are Schizotypal, Histrionic, and Dependent personality disorders, about 2% prevalence rate each
  
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  Narcissistic personality disorder least common, with 0.2% prevalence rate
  
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  Total prevalence rate for having at least one personality disorder is 13%
  

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  The overall prevalence rate for personality disorders is fairly equal in men and women
  
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  Exceptions: antisocial personality disorder occurs in men with a prevalence rate of about 4.5 percent and in women at only about a 0.8 percent prevalence rate
  

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  Distinctions between normal personality traits and disorders are in terms of extremity, rigidity, maladaptiveness
  
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  Parallel with chemistry: A little of this trait, some of that trait, and amplifying to extremely high (or low) levels, resulting in specific disorder
  
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  Dominant model currently is categorical model (DSM-IV and DSM-5)
  

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  Abnormal psychology and psychopathology are highly descriptive disciplines
  
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  Some theoretical work on causes of personality disorders
  
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  Most work emphasizes either “biological” causes or “social” causes of personality disorders
  

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  Hallmark of psychological definition of abnormal is anything that prevents a person from having satisfying relationships or from carrying on productive work
  
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  Sigmund Freud taught that the sign of a mature adult personality is the ability to love and to work
  
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  All of the personality disorders refer to symptoms that cause problems with relationships, work, or both
  
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  Personality disorders refer to enduring patterns of experience and behavior that differ greatly from the norms and expectations of a person’s culture
  
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  Disorder shows up in how a person thinks, feels, gets along with others, and the ability to control own actions
  
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  Pattern is displayed across situations, leading to the distress in self or others in key areas of life such as love and work
  
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  Disorder typically has a long history in a person’s life