Personality Disorder Treatment

Personality Disorder Treatment

Personality disorder is a term that describes a type of mental illness in which one’s way of thinking, behaving, perceiving and relating to others is maladaptive often causing distress and impairment in one’s life.

If you feel you suffer from a personality disorder, we can help.

Mental health professionals group personality disorders into three clusters:

Cluster A: Cluster A personality disorders are characterized by unusual, odd thinking and behaving and include the following:

• Paranoid Personality Disorder: An extreme distrust and suspiciousness of others, often interpreted as malevolent, and present in a variety of contexts.
• Schizoid Personality Disorder: A pervasive pattern of detachment from social relationships and emotional expression in interpersonal situations, that exists across a variety of contexts.
• Schizotypal Personality Disorder: A pattern of social problems and discomfort with social relationships coupled with cognitive and perceptual distortions and strange behaviors, present in a variety of contexts.

Cluster B: These four personality disorders are characterized by dramatic and overly emotional thinking and behaving.

• Antisocial Personality Disorder: A long-standing pattern of disregard for other people’s rights, irresponsible behavior and failure to conform to social norms and rules.
• Borderline Personality Disorder: A pervasive pattern of instability in interpersonal relationships, self-image and emotions.
• Histrionic Personality Disorder: A pattern of excessive emotionality and attention seeking behavior in a variety of contexts.
• Narcissistic Personality Disorder: A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy.

Cluster C: These three personality disorders are characterized by overly anxious and fearful thinking and behaving.

• Avoidant Personality Disorder: A long-standing pattern of feelings of inadequacy, extreme sensitivity to what other people think about them, and social inhibition.
• Dependent Personality Disorder: A long-standing need and feeling of needing to be cared for and an intense fear of being abandoned or separated from important individuals in his or her life.
• Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder: A pervasive pattern of preoccupation with orderliness, perfectionism, and control, at the expense of flexibility, openness, and efficiency.

Criteria summarized from: American Psychiatric Association. (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, fourth edition. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.

If you are affected by any of these conditions, we can help.