Taak 7
Larsen chapter 20
Disorders of personality
The building blocks of personality disorders
The symptoms of personality disorders can be seen as maladaptive ivariatons
within several of the domains which include traits, emotoos, cogoitoos, moties,
ioterpersooal behaiior, biology aod self-coocepts
Any given human functoning will be more afeeted than in others
Personality disorders can be thought of maladaptive ivariatons or
combinaton of normal personality traits
The concept of disorder
Today, a psyehologieal disorder is a patern of behavior or epperience that is
distressing and painful to the person, that leads to disability or impairment in
important life domains (e.g., problems with work, marriage or relatonship
difficultes), and that is associated with increased risk for further suffeering, loss of
functon, death, or confnement
Manie sans delire, or madoess without loss of reasoo was applied to individuals
who demonstrated disordered behavior and emotons but who did not lose
contact with reality
The feld of abnormal psyehology is the study of the various mental disorders,
including thought disorders, emotonal disorders, and personality disorders.
What is abnormal?
Asking what is abnormal suggests that there is a consensus on what is normal
which in fact there isn’t
Contextual faetors determine a great deal of what is considered normal and
abnormal
There are many ways to defne abnormal …
One simple defniton is that whatever is diferent from normal is abnormal
o This is a statstcal defniton, in the sense that researchers can
statstcally determine how ofen something occurs and, if it is rare,
call it abnormal
Another defniton of abnormal is a social defniton based on what soeiety
tolerates
, o If we defne the term in this sense, behaviors that society deems
unaeeeptable are labeled as abnormal
Both above defniton are tentatve because society changes
(before 1980 homosepuality was rare and unacceptable –
today it is ofen and acceptable)
Combining all these approaches to abnormality (statstcal, social, aod psycho-
logical), psychologists and psychiatrists have developed the feld of
psyehopathology, or the study of meotal disorders.
The diagnosis of mental disorders is both a seientfie diseipline and an important
part of the elinieal work of many psychiatrists and psychologists
A system for diagnosing and deseribing mental disorders that is widely accepted is
included in the Diagoostc aod Statstcal Maoual of Meotal Disorders
It was commonly called DSM-IV-TR and published by the Ameriean
Psyehiatrie assoeiaton
o IV means 4th editon
o TR means that something has ehanged to the original tept of the
DSM-IV
This is a widely used manual for determining the nature and eptent of
psyehologieal disorders, based on various symptoms and behaviors.
It lists more than 200 disorders organized in 5 dimension or apes
o Apis I clinical disorder
o Apis II Personality disorders
o Apis III mental disorders
o Apis V Global assessment of functoning
iT may need more to diagnose her/him
What is personality disorder?
A personality disorder is an enduring patern of epperience and behavior that dif-
fers greatly from the eppectatons of the individual's culture (DSM-IV).
traits are patterns of epperiencing, thinking about, and interactng with oneself
and the world
If a trait becomes maladaptive and inflexible and causes signifcant
impairment or distress, then it is considered to be a personality disorder.
,The essental features of a persooality disorder, according to the American
Psychiatric Associaton are in table 19.1
Varieties of personality disorders
The DSM-IV lists 10 personality disorders. These 10 disorders, in turn, fall into
three cluster
Cluster A, the odd & eccentric
Cluster B, the erratic (launisc)" & dramatic
Cluster C, The anxious, fearful
o All of the personality disorders involve impaired soeial relatons, or
trouble getng along with others.
A diferent elassifieaton system epists as well, called the ICD-10 Internatonal
elassifieaton of disease, 10th version
Do also refer to medieal disorders
HAS no apises
Culture, age and gender: the efect of context
Before judging that a behavior is a symptom of a personality disorder, we must
frst become familiar with a person's eultural baekground
, Age also is relevant to judgments about personality disorder.
Adolescents, for epample, epperiment with various identtes yet do not
haive a personality disorder
o Thus the American Psychiatric Associaton (1994) cautons against
diag-nosing personality disorders in persons under age 18
Also gender has taken into account
For epample, histrionic personality is mostly found in women
Specifc personality disorders
The eccentric cluster: ways of being diferent
The frst cluster of personality disorders contains traits that combine to make
people ill-at-ease socially and just plain diffeerent
most oddness has to do with how the person interaets with others
o When carried out to the extremes, these interpersonal styles form
three personality disorders known as…
Sehizotypal personality disorder & Sehizoid personality
disorder
Take roots in sc)izop)renia
o Schizophrenia involves hallucinatons, delusions
and perceptual aberratons
o Sc)izoid displays soeial apathy
o Sc)izotype is eeeentrie & interested in odd and
unusual beliefs
Human possess an genotype that makes
them vulnerable to schizophrenia
Paranoid personality disorder
Schizoid Personality disorder
The sehizoid personality is split of sehism) or detached from normal soeial
relatons
They have no desire for intmate relatonships or even friendship
Family life does not mean much to them
Don’t need to be in a group