Personality disorders

Personality disorders

An introduction to personality disorders.

Personality disorders are chronic psychological disorders that can greatly affect your life. People diagnosed with personality disorders often find that their work, social and home lives are affected. Dependent on each individual, personality disorders may be mild or severe. Most people with mild personality disorders are able to live relatively normal lives although times of stress or pressure may make the personality disorder more obvious and may interfere with emotional and psychological functioning.

People with personality disorders have many distinct psychological features including problems with self image, the ability to have a successful relationship, emotions, impulsiveness and often have trouble in the way that they see themselves and others. These factors come together to create a rather different behavioural pattern to what is considered as the “norm”. Consequently people with personality disorders may often clash with those without.

The cause of personality disorders is often unknown, but is believed to be influenced by several factors, or a combination thereof:

• Parental upbringing
• Personality and social development
• Genetics
• Biology

Research so far has shown that personality disorders are not caused by a specific factor. We do know however that the signs and symptoms of personality disorders are often more noticeable when the person is under stress or pressure.

The disorders have only been recently categorized and include the following: