Personality Disorder Series Part I

There are 10 specific personality disorders. General diagnostic criteria are that an individual exhibits an enduring pattern of behavior or internal experiences that are quite different from what is expected in that individual's culture. And such differences must manifest in two or more of the following areas in order to be diagnosed of having a personality disorder.

1. Cognitive differences. An individual's perception of events, self and others are outside of the norm.


2. Affective differences. How an individual expresses an emotional response is outside of the cultural norm (i.e., the range, lability, intensity and appropriateness of the emotion experienced and expressed).


3. Interpersonal functioning. How ones pervasive emotional experiences and expression gets in the way of their relationships.


4. Issues with impulse control.

The enduring patterns that were heretofore mentioned is one of inflexible and pervasive in nature and is across a broad range of personal and social events and situations. Such enduring patterns lead to what is considered clinically significant distress or impairment in their functioning in important areas of their life (e.g. work, friendship, marriage, etc). These patterns are consistent and are of long duration with its' onset which can be dated back at least to young to middle adolescence or early adulthood.

Another significant diagnostic criteria for a personality disorder is that the dysfunctional pattern is not better accounted for as a symptom or an outcome of another mental disorder, and that it is not directly due to any physiological effects of drugs or alcohol or a medical condition (e.g., head trauman, stroke, etc).

There are three clusters of personality disorders. They are labeled A, B, and C. Cluster A consists of personality disorders that can be put into a nutshell as "odd." Cluster B would be described as "the drama queen. " Lastly cluster C would be considered as "anxious."

The categories will be discussed in further details in the following installments of this series.

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Stay tuned.