| PERSONALITY DISORDER |
is an enduring, inflexible, and maladaptive pattern
of inner experience and behavior. It begins in teens or early adulthood,
and produces social and interpersonal dysfunction that is resistant
to treatment. Ten specific types are recognized: |
|
| antisocial personality disorder |
characterized by impulsivity, irritability, and aggressiveness.
They are likely to be irresponsible in work, social, and financial
commitments. Rule-breaking and trouble with legal authorities is typical.
They display impulsive anger, deceitfulness, and cunning, and enjoy
taking high risks. They have no regards for others and lack a conscience,
as well as having a distinct sense of entitlement. Also called psychopaths.
|
|
| avoidant personality disorder |
characterized by social withdrawal, shyness, distrustfulness, and
aloofness. Their behavior and speech are controlled, and they appear
apprehensive and withdrawn. They have low self-esteem and expect not
to be liked or loved, and to be humiliated and rejected by others.
Unlike schizoid personality disorder, avoidant individuals long for
close relationships, but their deeply ingrained anxieties, fears,
behaviors, and low self-esteem tend to prevent intimacy with others.
Their constant "testing" behavior tends to drive people
away. |
|
| borderline personality disorder |
characterized by self-destructive acts (suicidal gestures, self-mutilation,
or the provocation of fights). Their social and occupational levels
are often less than their intelligence and skills warrant. They are
unstable in that they tend to fluctuate between idealizing and clinging
to another person, and then devaluing and opposing that person. They're
exquisitely sensitive to rejection and experience abandonment depression
(related to an underlying attachment anxiety) following the slightest
stressors. They can't stand being alone. Their social adaptiveness
is superficial. They often indulge in illicit sexual activities or
other kinds of behavior in order to satisfy their need to not be alone.
|
|
| dependent personality disorder |
characterized by docility, passivity, and non-assertiveness. They
tend to be clinging and require the constant assurance of others.
Their compliance and reliance on others leads to a subtle demand that
others assume responsibility for their lives. They're very suggestible
and tend to be "pollyannaish" view of the world. They're
easily persuadable and easily taken advantage of by others. |
|
| histrionic personality disorder |
characterized by style that is charming, dramatic, expressive, demanding,
self-indulgent, and inconsiderate. They are constantly seeking attention,
have labile moods, are capricious, and are superficial. They tend
to be exhibitionistic and flirtatious, manipulative, and display empathetic
deficiencies. Their emotional style is characterized by exaggerated
emotional displays and excitability. |
|
| narcissistic personality disorder |
characterized by conceit, boastfulness, and snobbishness.
They appear self-assured, seek admiration, desire power and control
over others, are impatient, arrogant, exploitive of others, use others
for their own purposes (people are "tools" to narcissists),
and have no true empathy for others. Narcissists have a pronounced
sense of entitlement. |
|
| obsessive-compulsive personality disorder |
characterized by perfectionism,
dependability, stubbornness, possessiveness, indecisiveness, procrastination.
They tend to modify their behavior depending on rank of others (deferential
and obsequious to those with high rank, and haughty and autocratic
to others.) They require that others do things their way without
caring how others respond to their insistent demands (they make
"good" bureaucrats). They differ from Obsessive-Compulsive
Disorder (OCD) in that they don't have the obsessions and compulsions
that are features of OCD. |
|
| paranoid personality disorder |
characterized by a resistance to external influences. They tend
to be chronically tense because they are constantly mobilized against
perceived threats from the environment. They are guarded, defensive,
argumentative, and litigious. They tend to be distrustful, secretive,
and isolative. They avoid intimacy and turn aside nurturing overtures
by others. They tend to search for evidence that supports their preconceptions
rather than seek objective facts (which they discard if they come
across such evidence that doesn't support their prejudices). Thus,
while their perceptions may be correct, their judgment is not.
|
|
| schizoid personality disorder |
is characterized by lethargy, inattention, and occasional eccentricity.
They exhibit slow and monotonal speech and are generally non-spontaneous.
They are content to be alone and aloof. They prefer solitary pursuits,
are reserved and reclusive, and rarely respond to others' feelings
and actions. They are seen as "cold fish." Their thoughts
and communications can be easily derailed by internal or external
distractions. |
|
| schizotypal personality disorder |
characterized by eccentric, erratic, and bizarre mode of functioning.
Their speech is markedly peculiar while being coherent. They are inadequate,
become drifters, avoid enduring responsibilities, and lose touch with
social proprieties. They are loners and experience much social anxiety.
This is associated with paranoid features rather than low self-esteem.
They have marginal lives, and experience bizarre thoughts and fantasies
about the world. |
|
| Source |
http://www.driesen.com/glossary_p.htm |
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