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Antisocial, Avoidant, Borderline, Dependent, Histrionic, Narcissistic, Obsessive-Compulsive, Paranoid, Passive Aggressive, Schizoid, Schizotypal Personality disorders are long lasting psychological disorders. These disorders greatly affect a person's life. Having a personality disorder can negatively affect one's work, one's family, and one's social life. Personality disorders exist on a continual basis (like waves) so they can be mild to more severe in their features. The word personality describes deeply ingrained patterns of behavior and the manner in which individuals perceive, relate to, and think about themselves and their world. Personality traits are conspicuous features of personality and are not necessarily pathological, although certain styles of personality traits may cause interpersonal problems. Personality disorders are rigid, inflexible, and maladaptive behavior patterns of sufficient severity to cause significant impairment in functioning or internal distress. Personality disorders are enduring and persistent styles of behavior and thought, not atypical episodes. Those with a personality disorder possess several distinct psychological features including disturbances in self-image; ability to have successful interpersonal relationships; appropriateness of range of emotion, ways of perceiving themselves, others, and the world; and difficulty possessing proper impulse control. These behaviours appear more dramatic than what society considers usual. Therefore, those with a personality disorder often experience conflicts with other people and vice-versa. There are ten different types of personality disorders that exist, which all have various attributes. These disorders will most often manifest themselves during increased times of stress and interpersonal difficulties in one's life. Therefore, treatment most often focuses on increasing one's coping mechanisms and interpersonal skills. As a rule, those with paranoid personality disorders can be very draining to be around, as their constant habit of blame and suspicion makes one feel the need to reassure them on an ongoing basis. Unfortunately, when reassurances are made, those with this disorder hear contradictory evidence. They view it as more evidence that harm will be done to them. They tend to think in hierarchy: who controls the power. They want to know who has the power in any given situation. They tend to drive people away from them, and thus have few friends, proving to themselves even more that there is a conspiracy afoot against them. This leads them to have a very lonely life. There is significant overlap in personality disorders; people often have more than one personality disorder. Personality disorders affect 10 to15% of the population (Hales & Hales, 1995). Some of the disorders affect certain populations more than others. Antisocial, schizoid, and obsessive-compulsive personality disorders affect men more often than women. Women are more likely to be diagnosed with histrionic and dependent personality disorders. Personality disorders are deeply ingrained, inflexible, maladaptive patterns of relating, perceiving, and thinking of sufficient severity to cause either impairment in functioning or distress. Personality disorders are generally recognizable by adolescence or earlier, continue throughout adulthood, and become less obvious in middle or old age. Some personality disorders cited in DSM IV are: Eccentric Personality Disorders: Paranoid, Schizoid, Schizotypal Individuals with these disorders often appear odd or peculiar, and show these patterns by early adulthood and in various contexts (e.g., work, home, social situations). Dramatic Personality Disorders:Passive- Agressive, Antisocial, Borderline, Histrionic, and Narcissistic Individuals with these disorders have intense, unstable emotions, distorted self-perception, and/or behavioral impulsiveness. Anxious Personality Disorders: Avoidant, Dependent, Compulsive Individuals with these disorders often appear anxious or fearful, and like the other personality disorders, the generalized patterns described below typically begin in early adulthood, and are present in various contexts. Personality Disorder Screening On-line Psych-screens Psychological Diagnosis Screening |