General Personality Disorder

General Personality Disorder

Personality traits are enduring patterns of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the environment and oneself that are exhibited in a wide range of social and personal contexts. Only when personality traits are inflexible and maladaptive and cause significant functional impairment or subjective distress do they constitute personality disorders.

Features and Symptoms

The essential feature of a personality disorder is:

1.     an enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectations of the individual's culture and is manifested in at least two of the following areas: cognition, affectivity, interpersonal functioning, or impulse control

2.     This enduring pattern is inflexible and pervasive across a broad range of personal and social situations and leads to clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning

3.     The pattern is stable and of long duration, and its onset can be traced back at least to adolescence or early adulthood

The diagnosis of personality disorders requires an evaluation of the individual's long term patterns of functioning, and the particular personality features must be evident by early adulthood. The personality traits that define these disorders must also be distinguished from characteristics that emerge in response to specific situational stressors or more transient mental states (e.g., bipolar, depressive, or anxiety disorders; substance intoxication).

Diagnosis

A.    An enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectations of the individual’s culture.

B.    The enduring pattern is inflexible and pervasive across a broad range of personal and social situations.

C.    The enduring pattern leads to clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

D.    The pattern is stable and of long duration, and Its onset can be traced back at least to adolescence or early adulthood.

E.    The enduring pattern is not better explained as a manifestation or consequence of another mental disorder.

F.    The enduring pattern is not attributable to the physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, a medication) or another medical condition (e.g., head trauma).

Treatment

Treating a personality disorder will probably require a combination of medications and therapy. As there are a variety of personality disorders treatment should be tailored to the symptoms as they appear in the DSM-5.