What do you understand by a personality disorder?
Personality is made up of the unique traits of the individual. It is composed of the way a person feels, thinks about situations and behaves in a certain manner. Most of the time the personality of the individual remains the same for his whole life. However if the way an individual thinks, behaves or feels in a way that causes distress or problems functioning then it may be classified as a personality disorder. Personality disorders will affect the following two or more areas of the individual
- How he or she relates to other people
- How they think about themselves
- The way of their emotional response
- The way in which they control their behavior
There are many personality disorders that have been classified by DSM 5. Some of these can be listed below
- Antisocial Personality Disorder: The person with this personality disorder will disregard or violate the rights of others. They exhibit impulsive behavior and act in a manner that will disregard others.
- Avoidant Personality Disorder: These people are overly sensitive to criticism. They do not want to mix up with people in the fear that they may be rejected or criticized
- Borderline Personality Disorder: These type of people have a pattern of instability in personal relationships, they have intense emotions, they are impulsive, they lack self love and self image. These people have extreme anger episodes, they may go to any length to avoid being abandoned and also they have a constant feeling of emptiness. Such people may also have repeated suicidal attempts.
- Obsessive compulsive personality disorder: Such people have repeated cycles of obsessive thoughts and have compulsive responses to these obsessions. Like such people may have a very rigid schedule, may be obsessed with cleanliness, they may have very rigid moral and ethical values, they may be workaholics by nature and may not want any leisure time with family or friends.
- Narcissistic personality Disorder: They have a constant need for appreciation and they have no empathy for others. They have a very high sense of admiration of themselves, they use manipulation and emotional tactics to control the feelings of others and want constant control over people and situations. They are completely empty within and so they want constant fuel of appreciation and being wanted from people around them.
Are personality disorders treatable?
The broad answer to this question is that personality disorders are treatable in such a way that the bad impacts of the issues are not felt by the person and people around him or her. There are various psychotherapy techniques that can be used for the treatment of these personality disorders. However the results will vary depending upon the persons willingness to take therapy, the period for which the person is suffering from this disorder, the family dynamics, etc.
More severe disorders can be treated by a combined effort of psychiatrist, a psychologist, counselor, the family members and of course the effort of the person himself.
Many people with milder symptoms of personality disorders are able to manage these well with counseling. The management of the symptoms can help them lead their regular daily life with ease and also these can help the family members of the person to feel more comfortable around the person with the disorder.
How are personality disorders identified?
Every single person will have some or the other odd behavior, pattern of life or will be doing something which can be socially unacceptable. However that does not mean that every single person is having a personality disorder. A person who has a disorder will have a combination of symptoms of odd, socially unacceptable behavior, high peaks of emotions, difficulty in daily routine due to his behavior, constant clashes in relations etc. Such people who feel they are going through an odd behavioral pattern can go for consulting, sometimes their family members or other people around will also feel the need for such persons to seek counseling then they should bring them for counseling.
There are times when the person with a personality disorder may not accept that he needs treatment or may not want to take the counseling or therapy due to a feeling of shame. It is at this point of time that the family members should take steps to convince and get the person to willfully accept treatment