The most common indicators of personality disorder (PDO) are “Difficult Person,” “Entitlement,” and “Dependence.” Individuals with specific PDOs have specific problems.
It is possible to experience these feelings at certain points in life, such as during an episode of sickness.
Identifying a personality disorder doesn’t require being a specialist in that field. It’s just a matter of being aware of the symptoms and identifying if someone needs help.
While an individual’s maladaptive interactional habits and traits might lead to a personality disorder, there are other factors to consider.
If you don’t have many diagnosable skills, you can also tell by looking at what someone with a personality disorder might be involved in.
First, let’s define personality and the fundamental meaning and foundation of personality disorder.
What exactly is a personality?
Personality is fundamentally our relational style; it is how we see and interact with ourselves, the world, and others. A combination of temperament and personality determines this.
As a rule, the former is made up of genetically inherited components called characteristics, whereas the latter is made up of taught components called habits.
Some researchers use the concept of a core schema to describe how people learn to see and interact with the environment. Independent thought is discouraged or even punished in some environments, for example. It’s not unexpected that some believe they are incapable of thinking for themselves and must rely on others to make decisions. It characterizes the dependent personality.
Characteristics of a Disordered Personality
People with disordered personalities have a lengthy history of extensive damage across several domains. These are the individual’s thoughts, feelings, impulse control issues, and interpersonal interactions.
Borderline personality disorder is an example of this (BPD).
People who have borderline personality features are extremely sensitive to rejection and abandonment. They become enraged at the least sense (idea) of rejection, such as someone failing to call them on time (mood).
Given an innate propensity for amygdalar hypersensitivity, which means they respond defensively and furiously in quick form upon threat detection (lack of impulse control), the person with BPD lets their acquaintance know how they feel.
Naturally, the acquaintance is stunned/feels assaulted and avoids the person or strikes back in defense, and thus a chaotic interpersonal cycle begins. This occurs to varying degrees in various relationships and contexts, generating a self-fulfilling prophecy about rejection/abandonment and preserving the exact thing they fear the most.
The Three Most Important Signs
Perhaps more striking than specific symptoms associated with certain illnesses are the persistence, rigidity, and globalism of the perplexing behaviors.
One or two symptoms of a particular PDO are insufficient to warrant a diagnosis. It is essential to remember Emil Kraepelin’s dictum that “a single symptom, however characteristic, never validates a diagnosis by itself.”
For example, observations that a patient is moody and triangulates staff while in the hospital are insufficient to diagnose BPD. However, a convict who displays questionable morality and refuses to accept responsibility cannot be classified as antisocial.
The following behaviors are some of the PDO diagnoses:
1. Baseline Behavior:
It is critical to assess the history of the troublesome behavioral package. Personality is formed no later than the age of 13, according to PDO specialist Joseph Shannon, Ph.D. To be classified as a personality disorder, the pervasive traits/characteristics must be consistent and long-lasting, as in years.
If someone has an interaction style that is too often characterized by stress and upset.
It is important to ensure that their problematic style does not persist during stress or when they have mixed moods and conduct problems.
2. Inflexibility:
People with personality disorders may know that interpersonal issues complicate their lives, yet they continue to operate in a maladaptive manner and fail to learn from their mistakes. They assign blame and claim that everyone else is to blame.
Pathological narcissism, which often compensates for shame-based vulnerability, represents this best.
3. Global Complications:
Just because someone exhibits troublesome actions in the presence of specific others does not imply that they have a personality disorder. There must be widespread connecting issues throughout partnerships. For example, I examine many teenagers and young adults who are oppositional/defiant and reactively unpleasant at home.
At first look, this appears to be a developing passive-aggressive disposition. School workers, coaches, and providers report feeling positive about interactions outside the family, despite the challenges.
A person with a personality problem would demonstrate passive-aggressive tendencies wherever they went. There would be constant peer drama, school transgressions, and an overall sense that people were against them.
