Personality Disorders Flashcards
Personality
- temperament (nature)
- character (nurture, via experience)
- behavior
- predictability of behavior
- distinctive pattern formed for an individual (abstraction)
psychodynamic context of personality
adult character reflects early childhood experience –> forms a development sequence
complex interplay of bio/envio forces in character formation throughout life
critical points:
-developmental crises (bio/individual develop/society)
^crisis resolutions result in specific personality traits determining individuals capacity to handle later situations
psychotic mechanisms of defense/coping
denial, distortion, delusion projection
people who hear voices, believe they’re the savior of the world, etc.
involved w/ neural circuitry
adults tend to be inefficient w/ coping
character mechanisms of defense/coping
projection/projective identification, schizoid fantasy, hypochondriasis, passive aggression, acting out, splitting
user is rarely aware he has problems
neurotic defenses
alter inner feelings/instinctual expressions, but often cause internal distress
ultimately getting rid of CONTENT or FEELING to not deal w/ it
mature mechanisms
integrate reality, interpersonal relationships and internal feelings
(altruism, humor, suppression, anticipation, sublimation)
aloneness
emotional experience of annihilatory panic, person feels abandoned/unable to survive as a separate other in the world.
failure in the task of becoming a separate individual in the world (who are “we”).
2 Core Psychodynamic Concepts of Character
- aloneness
2. worthlessness
worthlessness
the emotional experience of fear/shame one is as “worthy” as one’s accomplishments (usually latest).
- outward may appear ok, “inside” feels inadequate
- extremely self-critical
- “about to be found out” (no value beyond the performance)
- failure in the task of developing an unshakeable sense of worth as an individual
temperament
- biologically-based set of personality traits mediated via neural networks
- from infancy
- largely immutable, influencing the environment; somewhat adaptively malleable by experience
- traits: extraversion, activity level, emotional reactivity, predominant mood
Diagnostic criteria of a personality disorder
Deeply ingrained stable, lifelong, inflexible and maladaptive patterns of behavior of sufficient severity to cause either significant impairment in adaptive functioning or subjective distress.
- can be traced to at least adolescence/early adulthood
- patterns NOT due to substance abuse/general med condition (head trauma)
How are personality disorders different from other disorders?
- persistent (chronic)
- pervasive (not circumscribed problem)
- inflexible
- do not always seem like a problem to the pt
Personality disorder Cluster A
Odd or eccentric (the “weird outsiders”)
- Paranoid (distrust)
- Schizoid (detachment, restricted emotional expression)
- Schizotypal (“schizophrenia-like”, eccentric behavior)
Personality disorder Cluster B
Dramatic, Emotional, Erratic (the “emotionally hyperbolic ones”)
- Antisocial (psychopaths)
- Borderline (impulsivity)
- Histrionic (attn-seeking)
- Narcissistic (grandiosity)
Personality disorder Cluster C
Anxious or fearful (“the rigid and contained ones”)
- Avoidant (social anxiety)
- Dependent (submissive/clingy)
- Obsessive-Compulsive (rigidity)
