Let's take a look at personality disorders.
What are personality disorders?
Personality disorders are maladaptive patterns of behavior
relating to others in three specific areas of functioning.
The thoughts and emotions, interpersonal participation,
and impulse management.
So, now when we think about a personality disorder,
we think about the fact that
these symptoms and these behaviors that we're seeing,
they're not caused by another psychiatric disorder.
Also, we begin to see this on early during their adolescence
or maybe during a person's early adulthood.
So what is the epidemiology? Where do these come from?
And what kind of comorbidities?
What other kinds of diseases might we see?
So, if we think about the general population,
13% of the general population have a personality disorder.
And we frequently will see the personality disorder
co-occurring with mood disorders,
with anxiety, with eating disorders, and also with substance abuse.
There are some genetic and biological factors
neurobiological factors
that we might want to consider when we're thinking about
personality disorders,
and that is the psychological factors,
environmental factors, and also stress.
When you think about personality disorders,
I really want you to think also about coping mechanisms.
Considering the fact that we see these
in early adulthood and adolescence.
It's often a maladaptive pattern of coping,
that a child has developed in order to be able to withstand
an environment that is stressful, that may be abusive.
And it is a way for the person to be able to continue living
in that environment,
where as a child, they really are powerless to change it.
So, personality disorders are put into three different clusters.
The A cluster, usually is with odd and eccentric behaviors.
Your B cluster, is dramatic and emotional behaviors.
And your C, are anxious and fearful behaviors.
You might think to yourself,
"Well, if this is happening, and becoming cemented
during an early childhood experience,
why does a person continue to use it throughout their life?
Why does it become their go to response?
I want you to think about how the brain works,
about the patterns that are developed in the brain,
about those neurotransmitters
that help us to order the world around us.
And if we find that, during a moment
where we're fearful for our life, or for someone that we love,
and being odd or eccentric,
or perhaps a little dramatic or emotional,
might interrupt the pattern of behavior that might be so fearful,
that gets imprinted in our minds
and that becomes part of our personality.
Another piece with personality disorders,
is to remember the difference between state and trait.
And when I think about state, you can move from state to state
if you want to change your environment.
A state is something that happens in that particular environment.
Whereas a trait is something that is part of your own personality.
You take it with you wherever you are going.