1. PSY 6669 Behavioral Pathology
Lecture 7
Personality Disorders

2. APA Definition of Personality
Personality refers to individual differences in characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving. The study of personality focuses on two broad areas: One it the understanding of individual differences in particular personality characteristics, such as sociability or irritability. The other is understanding how the various parts of a person come together as a whole.

3. Psychiatric Association
Personality is the way of thinking, feeling, and behaving that makes a person different from other people. An individual’s personality is influenced by experiences, environment (surroundings, life situation), and inherited characteristics.
A Personality Disorder is a way of thinking, feeling, and behaving that deviates from the expectations of the culture, causes distress or problems functioning, and lasts over time.

4. Definition of a Personality Disorder (pg 645/321)
The ingrained, enduring patterns of behaving, feeling, perceiving, and thinking. Personality traits become personality disorders when they:
Become inflexible and maladaptive.
Significantly impair social and occupational functioning or cause substantial subjective distress.
Personality disorders should ONLY be diagnosed when they cause life long problems and not just discrete periods of dysfunction.

6. Personality Disorder Clusters
Cluster A: Characterized by odd or eccentric behavior
Paranoid Personality Disorder
Schizoid Personality Disorder
Schizotypal Personality Disorder

7. Personality Disorder
Cluster B: Characterized by dramatic, over-emotional, and erratic behavior.
Antisocial Personality Disorder
Borderline Personality Disorder
Histrionic Personality Disorder
Narcissistic Personality Disorder

9. Borderline Pathology Poor Boundaries (S-O)
Limited Ego Integration (Split good/bad)
Regressive Behavior
Lacks object constancy
Enmeshment vs. Destruction
Urge to merge (love) vs. Fear of engulfment (hate)
Dependency vs. Independence

11. Differential Diagnoses
Cyclothymic Disorder
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
Narcissistic Personality Disorder
Substance Abuse/Use Disorder

13. High Functioning Borderline Personality Disorder
Does not Meet the DSM-5 criteria
Over idealized/undervalued interpersonal relationships
Mood Shifts (depression-anxiety)
“Empty” feeling
Possible Abandonment Issues
Both have Identity Disturbance

14. Borderline Personality Disorder
Low Functioning BPD:
Intense and unstable interpersonal relationships
Impulsive (self-destructive behaviors)
Mood Shifts (unstable emotions)
Anger (inappropriate)
Suicidal/Self-mutilating
“Emptiness” especially when not in a relationship
Abandonment Issues (emotionally left to “die”)

15. Treatment Issues Consistent and predictive environment
Tolerate affect without abandonment
Avoid the split
Don’t rescue ! Maintain intolerance to independence
Supportive Interpretations
Build Ego functions

16. Building Ego Functions
Internal/external reality testing
Make connections between feelings, thoughts, and behaviors
Interpret splitting
Model empathic understanding of others
Foster an observing Ego - responsibility for behavior

17. Personality Disorders
Cluster C: Characterized by highly anxious and fearful affect.
Avoidant Personality Disorder
Dependent Personality Disorder
Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder

20. Other Personality Disorder
Personality change due to another medical condition (pg 682/330)
Specify whether: Labile, Disinhibited, Aggressive, Apathetic, Paranoid, Other, Unspecified, or Combined Type
Other Specified/Unspecified Personality Disorder

22. Video Case Study: Gary

23. Gary
F60.1 Schizoid Personality Disorder

24. SNL Case Study

25. Video Case Study
F60.1 Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder Verse F42 Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

26. Review for Final Examinations