Personality Disorders
Ingrained, enduring patterns of behaving, feeling, perceiving, and thinking which are a) inflexible and maladaptive and b) significantly impair social and/or occupational functioning or cause substantial subjective distress.
- Paranoid Personality Disorder (“I only trust me and thee, and I’m not so sure of thee”) – a pattern of distrust and suspiciousness such that other people’s motives are interpreted as malevolent.
- Schizoid Personality Disorder (detached, “in a fog’’, absentminded, profoundly shy) – a pattern of detachment from social relationships and a restricted range of emotional expression.
- Schizotypal Personality Disorder (eccentric, peculiar) – a pattern of acute discomfort in close relationships, cognitive or perceptual distortions and eccentricities of behavior.
- Antisocial Personality Disorder (“Why do I rob banks, because that’s where the money is”) – a pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others.
- Borderline Personality Disorder (Don’t leave me. I hate you.) – a pattern of instability in interpersonal relationships, self-image and affects, with marked impulsivity.
- Histrionic Personality Disorder (“seeing is believing, but feeling is God’s own truth”) – a pattern of excessive emotionality and attention seeking.
- Narcissistic Personality Disorder (“please get me a tissue, I have a runny nose” said to nurse trying to resuscitate a collapsed patient) – a pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration and lack of empathy.
- Avoidant Personality Disorder (hypersensitivity to potential rejection, pervasive fear of being judged negatively) – a pattern of social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, and hypersensitivity to negative evaluation.
- Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (Are you sure there’s a hyphen in ‘obsessive-compulsive’?)– a pattern of preoccupation with orderliness, perfectionism and control.
- Dependent Personality Disorder (What should I do?) A pervasive and excessive need to be taken care of that leads to submissive and clinging behavior and fears of separation.
- Personality Disorder Not Otherwise Specified. A category provided when a person meets the criteria for a personality disorder, but does not meet a specific category of personality disorder.
