Types of Personality Disorders

• A) Disorders of unhappiness and anxiety

• B) Disorders in relating with others

• C) Disorders in thinking and lack of contact with reality

• All disorders have some of these characteristics

10 Personality Disorders

• Dependent Personality Disorder• Avoidant Personality Disorder• Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder

• Paranoid Personality Disorder• Histrionic Personality Disorder• Antisocial Personality Disorder• Narcissistic Personality Disorder

• Schizoid Personality Disorder

Score

• 8 = T

• 48 = T

• 69 = T

• 71 = T

• 76 = T

Schizotypal Personality Disorder

• A pattern of acute discomfort in close relationships, cognitive or perceptual distortions, and eccentricities of behavior

• They generally engage in eccentric behavior and have difficulty concentrating for long periods of time.

• Like people with schizoid PD, those with shizotypal PD tend to be socially isolated, be uncomfortable in interpersonal relationships and have a restricted range of emotions

Schizotypal Personality Disorder

• Their speech is often over elaborate and difficult to follow i.e. tangential, vague.

• May have inappropriate emotional responses (or none at all)

• May be easily distracted, become fixated, or lost in fantasy

• Many believe that schizotypal personality disorder represents mild schizophrenia, but SPDs maintain basic contact with reality

Score

• 7 = T

• 22 = T

• 30 = T

• 41 = T

• 72 = T

Borderline Personality Disorder• A pattern of instability in interpersonal relationships,

self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity

• Instability– Mood instability with bouts of severe

depression, anxiety or anger– Unstable self concept with periods of extreme

self-doubt and others of grandiose importance– Unstable interpersonal relationships – from

idealizing to despising (and promiscuity)

Borderline Personality Disorder

• A tendency towards impulsive and self-destructive behaviors, and out of control emotions

Borderline Personality Disorder

• Five of the following:

• 1) Rapid mood shifts

• 2) Uncontrollable anger

• 3) Self-destructive acts

Borderline Personality Disorder

• 4) Self-damaging behaviors

• 5) Identity disturbance

• 6) Chronic emptiness

Borderline Personality Disorder

• 7) Unstable relationships– View people as all good or all bad

• 8) Fear of abandonment

• 9) Confusion and feelings of unreality

How is a diagnosis made?

DSM-IV – Categorical Approach

• Based on the medical model

• Disorder is present or absent

Advantages of Categorical System

• Ease in conceptualization and communication

• Familiarity

• Consistency with clinical decision making

Assumptions of the DSM

• Personality pathology is suited to be classified into discrete types or disorders

• These disorders group themselves into three clusters

• The diagnostic criteria naturally fall into the particular personality disorders to which they have been assigned

Empirical Evidence doesn’t support these assumptions!!!

Disadvantages of the Categorical Approach

• Arbitrary cut-off points

• Loss of important information

• Will likely utilize a dimensional approach in DSM-V

Alternative conceptualisations of Personality Disorders

• Personality disorders can also be considered within the context of personality

• Provides a better understanding of each PD

– Five Factor Model– Interpersonal Circumplex

Personality Disorder N E A C O

Schizotypal High Low High

Schizoid Low Low

Paranoid High Low

Histrionic High High High High

Narcissistic High Low High High

Personality Disorder N E A C O

Antisocial High High Low Low

Borderline High Low Low

Dependent High High

Avoidant High Low

Obsessive-Compulsive High Low High Low

Interpersonal Circumplex Model

• Posits that all personality can be captured by two primary dimensions:

– Nurturance versus cold-heartedness

– Dominance versus submission

Personality

• An individual's characteristic patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior

First Question I asked

• What do we know when we know a person?

How can you figure out WHO a person is?

• Ask the person (S data)

• Ask others about the person (I data)

• Look at the persons life (L data)

• Look at what the person does (B data)

• “BLIS”

A more “structured” way to find out “who a person is”

• Standardized Tests!

• Rational Method

• Projective Tests

• Factor Analytic Method

• Empirical Method

• Combination of Methods

Basic Approaches

• Trait Approach

• The Single-Trait Approach– e.g., authoritarinsim, self-

monitoring, etc.

• The Many-Trait Approach– e.g., CAQ

• The Essential-Trait Approach– e.g., The Big Five

• The Simultaneous-Trait Approach– e.g., circumplex, sphere

Basic Approaches

• Biological / Evolutionary Approach

• Behavior Genetics– Twin Studies

• Evolutionary Psychology– “The blind watchmaker”– Jealousy– Attraction– Exotic becomes erotic

Basic Approaches

• Psychoanalytic Approach

• Freud– Psychosexual development– Parts of the mind

• Defense mechanisms• Subliminal Messages• “Slips of the tongue”• Humor

Basic Approaches• Psychoanalytic Approach

• Neo Freudians

• Carl Jung– Collective UCS, Archetypes,

Dreams

• Alfred Adler– Striving for superiority, Birth order

• Karen Horney– Basic anxiety, Coping with anxiety

(moving toward, away, against)

• Erik Erickson– Development across the lifespan

Basic Approaches

• Phenomenological Approach

• Philosophical roots– Free will, awareness,

meaning

• Carl Rogers– Self-Actualization,

Conditions of worth

• Abraham Maslow– Hierarcy or Needs, Self-

Actualization and Flow

Basic Approaches

• Behaviorism

• Philosophical roots– Empiricism,

Associationism, Hedonism

• Habituation

• Classical Conditioning

• Operant Conditioning

Basic Approaches

• Social Learning Theory

• Dollard and Miller – Habit Hierarchy, Approach-

Avoidance Conflict, Defense Mechanisms

• Rotter– BP, Expectancy, Locus of

Control, RV

• Bandura– Efficacy, Observational

Learning, Reciprocal Determinism

Basic Approaches

• Cognitive Approach

• Perceptual processes– Priming, aggression, rejection

sensitivity

• Self processes– Self-schemas

• Strategic and motivational processes– Optimistic vs. pessimistic,

Nomothetic Goals, Idiographic Goals

First Question I asked

• What do we know when we know a person?

• Each approach presents a different way to “think” about personality.

• Each approach asks and answers different questions.

• You must decide which approach is most valid!– This is what makes PERSONALITY PSYCHOLOGY fun!

Applications of Personality

• Personality Disorders

• Modern personality research– Person x Situation– Personality Romantic Relationships