personality disorders

Personality disorders are chronic
patterns of behavior that cause
lasting problems with work and
relationships. Paranoid personality
disorder can result from negative
childhood experiences fostered by
a threatening domestic
atmosphere. Narcissistic personality
disorder may be an infantile,
defensive personality structure in
response to abuse and trauma,
usually developing in early
childhood or early adolescence.
Childhood developmental factors
and parenting behaviors that may
contribute to the disorder:
Narcissistic personality disorder,
which is less common than other
personality disorders, is estimated
to affect less than 1 percent of the
general population. Narcissistic
personality disorder may be a
maladaptive defense of the abused
child's or adolescent's emotional
splitting, resultant cognitive
distortions, and negative/hostile
worldview.
Causes of Paranoid Personality
DisorderParanoid Personality
Disorder, paranoid personality
disorder symptoms, paranoid
personality disorder causes,
personality disorder paranoid,
schizoid personality disorder
Common Causes and Risk factors of
Paranoid Personality Disorder
Schizophrenia
Genetic contribution.
If you are in a relationship with a
person that exhibits some of these
symptoms, it is important to
remember that there is help
available. In a relationship, people
with pathological jealousy in
paranoid personality disorder will
often accuse their significant other
of cheating or other suspicious
activity. The accusations can be set
off by the smallest event or it can
be totally unprovoked. When this
happens, it is vital to consider the
fact that this condition is something
that affects the brain and might not
necessarily represent that person's
true identity.
Most people with this illness have
periodic episodes, called relapses,
when their symptoms surface.
Many individuals with
schizoaffective disorder are
originally diagnosed with manic
depression. Schizoaffective disorder
is more common in women than in
men. Men with schizoaffective
disorder tend to exhibit antisocial
traits and behavior in contrast to
other personality traits. In addition,
the age of onset is later for women
than for men, and the exact
etiology and epidemiology is
unclear because of limited research
in this area. Estimates of the
prevalence of schizoaffective
disorder vary widely, but
schizoaffective manic patients
appear to comprise 3-5% of
psychiatric admissions to typical
clinical centers.
Symptoms of paranoid personality
disorders include:
'¢ Emotional detachment;
'¢ Feelings of anger toward others;
'¢ Believing that people are trying
to harm you in some way;
Most personality disordered people
are prone to be angry. Their anger
is always sudden, raging,
frightening and without an
apparent provocation by an
outside agent. It would seem that
people suffering from personality
disorders are in a CONSTANT state
of anger, which is effectively
suppressed most of the time. It
manifests itself only when the
person's defences are down,
incapacitated, or adversely
affected by circumstances, inner or
external.
We have pointed at the
psychodynamic source of this
permanent, bottled-up anger,
elsewhere in this book. In a
nutshell, the patient was, usually,
unable to express anger and direct
it at "forbidden" targets in his early,
formative years (his parents, in
most cases). The anger, however,
was a justified reaction to abuses
and mistreatment. The patient was,
therefore, left to nurture a sense of
profound injustice and frustrated
rage.
Family therapy can significantly
decrease relapse rates for the
schizoaffective family member. In
high-stress families, schizophenic
patients given standard aftercare
relapse 50-60% of the time in the
first year out of hospital.
Supportive family therapy can
reduce this relapse rate to below 10
percent.