Personality Disorders

Personality Disorders • By Grady McRae, Shantel Parker, Megan McMillan, Cassie Matthews, Moroni Sorroche, Marlene Avellano, and Thomas Crowther

Introduction Definition Some Statistics…. • About 1 in 4 Americans suffers from a diagnosable mental disorder. • Fewer than 25% of College Students seek treatment. • Personality disorders are disorders characterized by deeply ingrained, inflexible patterns of thinking, feeling, or relating to others or controlling impulses that cause distress or impaired functioning.

Introduction continued… • Schizotypal • Paranoid • Schizoid • Antisocial • Borderline • Histrionic • Narcissistic • Avoidant • Dependent • Obsessive-compulsive

Schizotypal Definition… • Peculiar or eccentric manners of speaking or dressing. Strange beliefs. “Magical thinking” such as belief in ESP or telepathy. Difficulty forming relationships. May react oddly in conversation, not respond, or talk to self. Speech elaborate or difficult to follow.

Schizotypal continued… Symptoms: Causes: • Incorrect interpretation of events • Peculiar thinking, beliefs or behavior • Suspicious or paranoid ideas • Belief in special powers (telepathy) • Excessive social anxiety • Childhood abuse • Neglect or stress

Schizotypal continued… Treatment: • Medication— • antidepressant • antipsychotic • One or more types of therapy: • Psychotherapy • Behavior therapy • Cognitive therapy • Family therapy.

Paranoid Disorder Definition • Distrust in others, suspicion that people have sinister motives. Often jealous, guarded, secretive, overly serious.

Paranoid Disorder Continued… Symptoms: • Pattern of distrust and suspiciousness. • They expect people to deceive, exploit or harm them, all regardless of their relationships with them self's • They have an excessive need to be self sufficient and must have control over those around them Causes: • Biological and Genetic Factors • How the person was raised

Paranoid Disorder Continued… Treatment: • Medication— • Anti-anxiety agent • Diazepam • Anti-psychotic • Thioridazine • Haloperidol • Psychotherapy is also recommended along with medication

Schizoid Disorder Definition • Extreme introversion and withdrawal from relationships. Fearful of closeness, with poor social skills, often seen as a “LONER”.

Schizoid Disorder Continued… Symptoms: • Detached from the social or emotional relationships mostly because they don’t know how to communicate effectively • They often react passively to circumstances. • They enjoy solitude

Schizoid Disorder Continued… Treatments: • No medications usually assist unless the person is also suffering from major depression. • If at all possible long term medication should be avoided. • Psychotherapy (people with this disorder are unlikely to seek help) • Self help groups (helps the person to develop healthy relationships)

Borderline Disorder Definition • Unstable moods and intense. Stormy personal relationships . Self-image fluctuation and a tendency to see others as “all good” or “all bad”

Borderline Disorder continued… Symptoms: • often has unstable relationships. • low self-esteem. • problems with impulsive behavior. • all of which begin by early adulthood.

Borderline Disorder Continued… Treatments: • Get enough sleep, and go to bed around the same time every night. • Eat a balanced diet that is low in saturated fat and contains lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. • Get regular exercise, such as walking or swimming. • Avoid alcohol, illegal drugs, and medicines that have not been prescribed to you. These may make your symptoms of borderline personality disorder worse and also may interfere with your prescribed medicines. • Avoid making any major life decisions (like changing jobs, moving, or getting married or divorced) when you are feeling irritable, anxious, angry, or depressed. • Keep scheduled counseling appointments, and take your medicines as prescribed.

Histrionic Disorder Definition • Constant attention seeking. Believes that everyone loves them. Overly dramatic, enthusiastic, and excessively flirtatious. Shallow and labile true emotions

Histrionic Disorder continued… Symptoms: • Acting or looking overly seductive • Being easily influenced by other people • Being overly concerned with their looks • Being overly dramatic and emotional • Being overly sensitive to criticism or disapproval

Histrionic Disorder continued… Treatments: • People with this condition often seek treatment when they experience depression or anxiety from failed romantic relationships or other conflicts with people. Medication may help the symptoms, but talk therapy (psychotherapy) is the best treatment for the condition itself.

Antisocial Disorder What it is: • A pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood. • Cause: Typically have a history of conduct disorder before the age of 15, problems such as aggression, destruction of property, rule violation, deceitfulness, lying and stealing, this behavior often predicts antisocial tendencies. Patients often have had little or no significant emotionally-rewarding relationships in their lives.

Antisocial Disorder Continued… Symptoms: • Failure to conform to social norms • Deceitfulness • Impulsivity or failure to plan ahead • Irritability and aggressiveness • Reckless disregard • Consistent irresponsibility • Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another

Antisocial Disorder Continued… Treatments: • Medications should only be utilized to treat clear, acute and serious concurrent diagnoses. No research has suggested that any medication is effective in the treatment of this disorder. • Psychotherapy • Rapport building • Focusing on emotions that cause the person’s actions. • Reinforce any emotions outside of anger or frustration.

Narcissistic Disorder • What it is: the individual is described as being excessively preoccupied with issues of personal adequacy, power, prestige and vanity. • Sub types: 1. The "oblivious" subtype as being grandiose, arrogant, and thick-skinned 2. The "hypervigilant" subtype as being easily hurt, oversensitive, and ashamed.

Narcissistic Disorder continued… • Symptoms: • Reacts to criticism with anger, shame, or humiliation • May take advantage of others to reach their own goal • Tends to exaggerate their own importance and achievements • Imagines unrealistic fantasies of success, beauty, power, intelligence, or romance • Requires constant attention and positive reinforcement from others • Causes: • An oversensitive temperament at birth • Excessive praise for good behaviors or excessive criticism for bad behaviors in childhood • Valued by parents as a means to regulate their own self-esteem • Severe emotional abuse in childhood • When these traits are compounded by a failure of the interpersonal environment and continue into adulthood they may intensify until diagnosed.

Narcissistic Disorder continued… Treatments: • Short hospitalization for severe cases • Self help • Group therapy • There is no medication that will help someone with narcissistic tendencies.

Avoidant Personality Definition • Avoidant personality disorder is a condition in which a person has a lifelong pattern of feeling very shy, inadequate, and sensitive to rejection.

Avoidant Personality Continued… Symptoms: • Always thinking of their shortcomings • They would rather be lonely than form close bonds with others in fear of loss or rejection • Very sensitive to any criticism or disapproval • Hold back information about themselves in relationships and are reluctant to become involved with anyone. • Avoid activities and/or jobs that involve contact with others • They are very shy in social settings in fear of doing something wrong • Make potential difficulties seem worse then they are • View themselves as unappealing, not as good as others, and not good socially

Avoidant Personality Continued… Treatments: • Psychotherapy • Medications— • Anti-anxiety agents • antidepressants

Dependent Disorder Definition: • A highly diagnosed, chronic disorder in which the person depends too much on others for emotional or physical needs. From deciding who to socialize with to making a decision on what to wear for the day. Persons suffering from this disorder tend to be very needy and possibly suffer from depression and\or anxiety. Causes are still unknown but are common equally amongst both genders

Dependent Disorder continued… Symptoms: • Avoiding responsibility • Overly focused on abandonment • Very Passive, especially in relationships • Cannot make decisions without someone- Separation anxiety and/or depression

Dependent Disorder continued… Treatments: • The only treatment that has shown to have affect is long term talk therapy which is not guaranteed to help. • Medications are provided but only to treat the depression or anxiety. • Complications — • Alcohol and drug abuse-Depression . • Suffer from or inflict on physical, emotional or sexual abuse.

Consequences of non-treatment • Senseless death. • Harm to self. • Stealing. • Lying. • Destruction of Property. • People that are unable to be productive for themselves or their families.

In Conclusion… • Personality Disorders are not to be taken lightly. Some are fatal or life threatening. They affect all of us in some way or another. All individuals that have some sort of mode altering disorder should seek help. Any questions?

Personality Disorders