Avoid Personality Disorder

Psychodynamic theorists believe that repeated mistreatment during childhood and a lack of love have a strong contribution to the development of most personality disorders. For example, some people with paranoid personality disorder might perceive their environment as hostile because their parents placed unreasonable demands on them constantly. Also, in antisocial personality disorder, an absence of parental love might lead to a lack of basic trust. Cognitive theorists believe that people with paranoid personality disorder hold broad maladaptive assumptions, like “people will attack you if given the chance.” For schizoid personality disorder, cognitive theorists believe that people with this disorder have deficiencies in their thoughts; their
There appears to be a genetic factor in paranoid personality disorder, but biological theorists are not certain. According to the textbook, there does not seem to be a biological cause for schizoid personality disorder. There are similar biological factors between schizotypal personality disorder and schizophrenia; there is high activity of dopamine, enlarged brain ventricles, smaller temporal lobes, and loss of gray matter. In antisocial personality disorder, there are biological factors; lower serotonin activity, which produces high impulsivity and aggression; deficient functioning in the frontal lobes and prefrontal cortex. Cognitive theorists suggest that people with this disorder do not necessarily consider other people to be important. Biological abnormalities seem to be apparent in borderline personality disorder; an overly reactive amygdala and an underactive prefrontal
There is a limited amount of success when therapy is applied to this disorder because people with this disorder fail to see that they have a problem and they usually feel inferior compared to the therapist, so they do not treat the therapist with respect. Most people with schizoid personality disorder do not enter therapy because of their social withdrawal and those who do go tend to be emotionally distant from their therapist. Drug therapy does not really benefit patients with paranoid personality disorder or schizoid personality disorder. Therapy is not easy for individuals with schizotypal personality disorder. Therapists attempt to help clients “reconnect” with the world and to understand that there are limits to their thoughts and powers. Since the schizotypal personality disorder is similar to schizophrenia, antipsychotic drugs have been used; they are effective in small doses, but only for some people. Cognitive therapists aim to help clients with antisocial personality disorder by encouraging them to think about moral issues and about the needs of other people. It is difficult to treat people with this disorder because they do not have the desire to change and they lack a conscience.