Personality Disorders Flashcards
Personality
Traits
Personality: Consistency in behav snd thinking
Traits: Characteristic features of a person that are displayed persistently over time and in various situations
Prevalence of personality disorders
Egosyntonic
6-9% of population
Egosyntonic: Patient doesn’t think disorder is an issue and tends to not seek for help (opposite of egodystonic)
Cluster A of personality disorders (odd and eccentric):
Paranoid
Schizoid
Schizotypical
Paranoid: 4+ symptoms
- Pervasive suspiciousness and distrust
- Beats grudges, believes everyone is against them
Schizoid: 4+ symptoms
- Lack of emotional responsiveness
- Loner, not much activity
Schizotypical: 5+ symptoms
- Eccentricity (strange beliefs, speech, behav, appearance)
- Socially isolated, paranoid fears rather than judgments about self
Cluster B of personality disorders (dramatic, emotional, erratic):
Antisocial
Narcissistic
Borderline
Histrionic
Antisocial: 3+ symptoms
- Disregard for and violation of rights of others
- Failure to conform to social norms
- Impulsive and aggressive
Narcissistic: 5+ symptoms
- Grandiosity and sense of entitlement
- Need for admiration
- Lack of empathy, takes advantage of others, arrogant
Borderline: 5+ symptoms
- Instability in interpersonal relationships (fear of abandonment) and self-image
- Impulsive in self-damaging ways
- Feelings of emptiness, anger, and suicide
- May have paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms (only for a few hours or days)
Histrionic: 5+ symptoms
- Excessive shifting between emotions, exaggerated emotions
- Attention seeking, suggestible
- Believes relationships more intimate than they are
Minimum age of antisocial personality disorder?
What disorder should the patient have before 15?
Is it more common in males or females?
18 years old
Conduct disorder
More in makes, especially in prisons
Etiology of personality disorder:
Family life
Genetics
Fearlessness hypothesis
Disruptive family life may influence behav
Genetic heritability is high (44-77%)
Fearlessness hypothesis:
- Have higher threshold for feeling fear
- Causes indifference to punishment and more opposition to control
- Most likely learned from early experiences
What are the differential diagnoses between antisocial personality disorder and:
Narcissistic personality disorder
Borderline personality disorder
Substance use disorder
Narcissistic personality disorder:
- Can be exploitive and uncompassionate, but aren’t aggressive or deceitful
Borderline personality disorder:
- Manipulative but only for reassurance and nurture
Substance use disorder:
- Impulsive and irresponsible but only from substance use
Etiology of psychopathy
Lower amygdala activation
Serotonergic hypofunctioning
High dopamine activity
Gender bias of psychopathy
People tend to see females as a more nurturing type and can hide psychopathy more easily than males
Differential diagnoses in borderline personality disorder
- Depression
- Bipolar disorder
- Schizophrenia
Depression:
- Emptiness and suicidal thoughts also present
Bipolar:
- Instability from increased mood reactivity also present but differs in duration and lvl of reactivity
Schizophrenia:
- Dissociative symptoms like depersonalization, derealization, illusions
Prevalence of borderline personality disorder
More common in men or women?
Suicide rate?
2% of population
More common in females but usually don’t have BPD for life
10% suicide rate but nonsuicidal self-injury also common to regulate emotions
Cluster C of personality disorders (anxious and fearful):
Avoidant
Dependent
Obsessive-Compulsive
Avoidant: 4+ symptoms
- Social inhibition
- Doesn’t feel good enough and fears intimate relationships
- Hypersensitivity to negative criticism/rejection
Dependent: 5+ symptoms
- Submissive and clingy behav (excessive need to be taken care of)
- Struggles to do things on own and disagree w/others
Obsessive-Compulsive: 4+ symptoms
- Excessive orderliness, perfectionism and control
- Devoted to work, inflexible views
- Can’t throw out worthless objects or use money
Difference between obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD)?
OCD’s fears not relevant to real-life concerns
- More aware of thoughts, rituals, and impacts on others
- Have more insight
- Interferes w/ many areas of life
Psychodynamic views of cluster C personality disorders (anxious and fearful)
Caused by disturbances in parent-child relationship
- Problems related to separation-individuation
- Causes inadequate sense of self or problems dealing w/ other people
Bowlby’s attachment theory
Attachment styles:
Sensitive
Insecure-avoidant
Insecure-ambivalent (Insecure-resistant)
Insecure-disorganized
Children learn how to relate to others by the way their parents relate to them
1) Sensitive: Sensitive and responsive caregiving from parents
2) Insecure-avoidant: Intrusive and irritable caregiving
3) Insecure-ambivalent (Insecure-resistant): Unaffectionate and inconsistent caregiving
4) Insecure-disorganized: Neglectful and abusive caregiving
