Personality Disorders Flashcards
What is a personality disorder?
An enduring pattern of inner experience and behaviour that deviates markedly from the expectations of the individual’s culture. This pattern is manifested in two (or more) of the following areas:
Cognition
Affectivity
Interpersonal functioning
Impulse control
The pattern is inflexible and pervasive.
It leads to clinically significant distress or impairment in a range of important areas of functioning.
The pattern is stable and can be traced back at least to early adulthood.
It is not better explained by another diagnosis.
It is not attributable to a physiological change.
What are cluster A personality disorders?
The prominent problems are with the perceived safety of interpersonal relationships
Paranoid Personality Disorder
Schizoid Personality Disorder
Schizotypal Personality Disorder
What are the diagnostic criteria for paranoid personality disorder?
A pervasive distrust and suspiciousness of others such that their motives are interpreted as malevolent, beginning by early adulthood and including four or more of the following:
Suspects without valid proof that someone is trying to decieve, harm or exploit them.
Preoccupiations that friends and associated are unloyal and untrustworthy
Reluctance to confide in others in case that information is used against them
Sees hidden threats and demeaning messages beneath normal remarks or events
Persistently bears grudges
Perceives attacks on their character that are not apparent to others and regularly argues back
Has suspicions without proof that spouse is cheating on them
What are the diagnostic criteria for schizoid disorder?
A pervasive pattern of detachment from social relationships and restricted expression of emotions in interpersonal settings beginning by early adulthood and including four or more of the following:
Neither desires nor enjoys close relationships, even being in a family
Almost always chooses solitary experiences
Has no interest in sexual relationships
Takes little pleasure in activities
Lacks close friends
Appears indifferent to praise or criticism
Shows emotional detachment, flattened affectivity and detachment
What are the diagnostic criteria schizotypal personality disorder?
A pervasive pattern of social and interpersonal deficits marked by acute discomfort and reduced capacity for close relationships as well as by cognitive or perceptual distortions and eccentricities of behaviour beginning by early adulthood and including five or more of the following:
Ideas of reference (excluding delusions of reference)
Odd beliefs or magical thinking that influences behaviour and is inconsistent with subcultural norms
Unusual perceptual appearances including bodily illusions
Odd thinking and speech
Suspiciousness or paranoid ideation
Inappropriate or restricted affect
Behaviour or appearance that is odd or eccentric
Lack of close friends
Excessive social anxiety that seems to be about paranoid fears
What are cluster B personality disorders?
The prominent problems are with keeping feelings tolerable without acting Antisocial Personality Disorder Narcissistic Personality Disorder Borderline Personality Disorder Histrionic Personality Disorder
What are the diagnostic criteria for antisocial personality disorder?
A pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others, occurring from the age of 15 and including at least three of the following:
Failure to conform to social norms in reference to lawful behaviours, so repeatedly have behaviours that are grounds for arrest
Deceitfulness, lying to others, use of aliases or conning them for personal gain
Impulsivity or failure to plan ahead
Irritability and aggressiveness so get into fights
Reckless disregard for self and others safety
Consistent irresponsibility so cant hold down job
Lack of remorse
What are the diagnostic criteria for borderline personality disorder?
A pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self image and affects, and marked impulsivity, beginning in early adulthood and including at least five of the following:
Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment
A pattern of unstable or intense interpersonal relationships characterised by alternating between extremes of idealisation and devaluation
Identity disturbance/unstable self image
Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self damaging
Recurrent suicidal behaviour
Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood
Chronic feelings of emptiness
Can’t control intense anger
Transient stress related paranoid symptoms or dissociative symptoms
What are the diagnostic criteria for narcissistic personality disorder?
A pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy occurring in early adulthood including five or more of the following:
Grandiose sense of self importance
Preoccupied with fantasies of success, power and beauty
Believes that they are special and unique
Require excessive admiration
Sense of entitlement
Interpersonally exploitative
Lacks empathy
Envious of others or believe others are envious of them
Arrogant or haughty behaviour
What are the diagnostic criteria for histrionic personality disorder?
A pervasive pattern of excessive emotionality and attention seeking, beginning by early adulthood and including five or more of the following:
Uncomfortable in situations in which they are not the centre of attention
Display rapidly shifting and shallow displays of emotion
Uses physical appearance to draw attention to self
Style of speech that is impressionistic and lacking in detail
Shows self dramatisation and theatricality and exaggerated expression of emotion
Suggestible/influencable
Considers relationships to be more intimate than they actually are
What are cluster C personality disorders?
The prominent problems relate to anxiety and how it is managed (in relationships)
Obsessive-Compulsive (Anankastic) Personality Disorder
Avoidant Personality Disorder
Dependent Personality Disorder
What are the diagnostic criteria for obsessive compulsive personality?
A pervasive pattern of preoccupation with orderliness, perfectionism and mental and interpersonal control at the expense of flexibility, openness and efficiency beginning by early adulthood and including four or more of the following:
Preoccupied with details, lists, rules and order to the point where the purpose of the activity is lost
Shows perfectionism that impedes on completing the task
Devoted to work and productivity at the expense of leisure activities
Inflexible and scrupulous about matters of morality, ethics and values.
Unable to discard worn out/old objects even when they have no sentimental value
Reluctant to delegate tasks in case they are not done exactly how desired
Hoards money for future catastrophes
Rigidity and stubbornness
What are the diagnostic criteria for avoidant personality disorder?
A pervasive pattern of social inhibition, self inadequacy, and hypersensitivity to negative evaluation, beginning by early adulthood and including four or more of the following:
Avoid activities that involve interpersonal communication to avoid criticism, rejection or disapproval.
Unwilling to get involved with people unless sure they will be liked
Shows restraint with intimate relationships for fear of rejection or ridicule
Preoccupied with being criticised or rejected in social situations
Inhibited in new interpersonal situations due to feelings of inadequacy
Views self as socially inept and personally unappealing
Reluctant to take new personal risks or engage in new activities in case of embarrassment
What are the diagnostic criteria for dependant personality disorder?
A pervasive, excessive need to be looked after that can lead to submissive and clinging behaviours and fears of separation, starting in early adulthood and including five or more of the following:
Difficulty making every day decisions without excessive reassurance or advice from others
Need others to assume responsibilities for major parts of their life
Difficulty disagreeing with people for fear of being disliked or disapproved of
Difficulty doing things on own or starting projects due to lack of confidence
Goes to excessive lengths to be nurtured and supported by others
Feels uncomfortable or helpless when alone
Urgently seeks another relationship when one close relationship ends
Preoccupied with thoughts that they’ll have to take care of themselves
