1. Personality Disorders
Personality is the totality of emotional and behavioral
traits apparent in a person’s
ordinary life that is usually stable and predictable.
Personality traits are enduring patterns of perceiving,
relating to, and thinking about the environment and
the self that are exhibited in a wide range of contexts.
2. A personality disorder
deviant from cultural standards
rigidly pervasive
onset in adolescence or early adulthood
stable over time,
lead to unhappiness and impairment
maladaptive behavior in at least two:
1.Affect 2. Cognition 3. Impulse control
4. Interpersonal functioning
4. Cluster A:
odd and eccentric
more common in biological relatives of client with
schizophrenia
Types
Paranoid - distrust and suspiciousness
Schizoid - detachment from social relationships
Schizotypal -acute discomfort in close relationships,
cognitive or perceptual distortions, and eccentric behavior
5. Cluster B:
dramatic, emotional, erratic, defenses of dissociation,
acting out, denial, and splitting
Types
Antisocial - distrust of other and violations of their rights,
often co-morbid with substance use disorders
Borderline - instability in interpersonal relationships, self-image,
affect, and impulse control, often co-morbid with mood
disorders
Histrionic - excessive emotionality and attention-seeking, often
co-morbid with somatization
Narcissistic - grandiosity, a need for admiration, and a lack of
empathy
6. Cluster C:
These persons are anxious or fearful, and tend to
utilize the defenses of isolation,
passive aggression, and somatization
Types
Avoidant - social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, and
hypersensitivity to negative evaluation
Dependent - submissive and clinging behavior related to
an excessive need to be taken care of
Obsessive-compulsive - preoccupation with
orderliness, perfectionism, and control
7. Diagnostic Considerations
low inter-rater reliability with personality disorders
require a longitudinal versus a time-limited assessment approach
Psychological testing can be helpful
8. + Coding
principal diagnosis if focus on PD
should rarely be applied to children and
adolescents because personality patterns are
evolving during and don’t reach a state of
constancy until late adolescence/young
adulthood.
- Symptoms should be present for a full yr in
adolescence in order to diagnose
9. + Borderline Personality Disorder
a pattern of instability in interpersonal relationships, self-image,
and affect, featuring impulsive behavior
Characterized by extremely unstable affect, mood, object
relations, and self-image
frantic efforts to avoid abandonment
failed to successfully negotiate task of separating from primary caregivers
while maintaining an internalized sense of being cared for
often in crisis due to their intense feelings of anger, emptiness,
and hopelessness that occur when stressed
Other features include anxiety, transient psychotic symptoms,
suicidal or self-mutilating behaviors, and substance abuse.
Core features: highly variable mood and impulsive behavior
10. +
Prevalence of BPD
5.9%
most common personality disorder found in clinical settings
In clinical samples, most frequent in females but in population, males
and females have equal rates
11. +
Assessment
Determine through a social history whether the client’s presenting problems result from patterns of
interaction with others
Assess for recent stressors; determine whether isolated situation or part of a general pattern
Is the client’s presenting problem an outcome of conflicted interactions with significant
others? If so, is this an isolated situation, or part of a general pattern?
Does the client maintain positive relationships with some significant others (such as
friends, family, and co-workers), or are most relationships conflicted?
Influence of any substances that may account for the symptoms of anxiety and depression.
Medical condition
For older adolescents and young adults, determine whether relatively less severe identity concerns
are related to a developmental phase
The client’s manipulative behavior must be related to a desire for nurturance rather than a desire for
power, profit, or personal gain
12. +
Assessment
Is the client under the influence of any substances that might account for the symptoms of anxiety
and depression?
Is there evidence of a history of hypomanic or manic episodes? Of depressive episodes?
If the client is an older adolescent or young adult, are identity concerns related to a developmental
phase?
If the client displays manipulative behaviors toward others, including the social worker, are they
related to a desire to elicit nurturance or for power or personal gain?
What cultural conditions may be affecting the client’s relationship-seeking behavior?
What environmental conditions may be affecting the client’s relationship-seeking behavior?
13. + Co-Morbidity
mood disorders, substance related disorders,
eating disorders (notably bulimia), PTSD and
other anxiety disorders, dissociative identity
disorder, and attention deficit hyperactivity
disorder
Symptoms of depression characteristic of BPD -
emptiness, self-condemnation, abandonment
fears, hopelessness, self-destructiveness, and
repeated suicidal gestures
mood swings that resemble bipolar disorder (the
interpersonal conflicts are a differentiating factor)
14. + Suicidality and Self-Mutilation
55% of inpatients have histories of suicide
attempts, although suicide rate is 5-10%
Reasons for self-mutilation:
express anger,
punish oneself,
generate normal feelings when experiencing depersonalization,
or distract oneself from painful feelings
15. +
Risk and Protective Factors
37.1% genetic and 62.9% environmental influences
Psychodynamic formulation
Separation-individuation phase fixation – can’t distinguish between self and
others
have failed to successfully negotiate the delicate task of separating from
primary caregivers while maintaining an internalized sense of being cared
for.
Trauma in the social environment in childhood
16. +
Course
Variable
one-third recover ten years after initial diagnosis
Low SES do worse
a “natural course” recovery rate of 3.7% per year
clients receiving intervention recover at a rate seven
times that of persons who do not receive intervention
25% recovery rate per year for clients receiving
intervention.
Substance use -risk
17. +
Intervention
40-60% drop out prematurely
Components:
establishing and maintaining a therapeutic framework
and alliance
responding to crises and monitoring the client’s safety
providing education about the disorder
consistent supportive or insight-oriented therapy
coordinating intervention provided by other providers
18. +
Indications for partial or brief
inpatient hospitalization
Dangerous, impulsive behavior that can’t be managed in an
outpatient setting
Non-adherence with outpatient intervention and a deteriorating
clinical picture
Complex comorbidity that requires intensive clinical
assessment of response to intervention
Symptoms of sufficient severity to interfere with functioning,
work, or family life that are unresponsive to outpatient
intervention
Transient psychotic episodes associated with loss of impulse
control or impaired judgment
19. +
Contract for services
timing and frequency of sessions,
plans for crises management,
after-hours availability (if any)
expectations about scheduling, attendance, and payment.
20. + Dialetical behavior therapy
CBT and social learning, mindfulness
assumes core difficulty of clients is affective instability
"dialectical" intervention needs to address both biological and
environmental aspects of the disorder/self-acceptance and
change
intensive, one-year outpatient intervention that combines
weekly individual sessions with weekly skills-training groups
purpose of group– to teach adaptive coping skills in the areas
of emotional regulation, distress tolerance, interpersonal
effectiveness, and identity confusion, and to correct
maladaptive cognitions.
21. +
Modality of DBT
individual therapy, a formal skills-training group, a therapist
consultation team, some form of coaching (usually by telephone), and
a treatment length of at least six months for outpatient clients and two
months for inpatient clients.
22. + Psychodynamic Intervention
draws from three major theoretical perspectives:
ego psychology
object relations
self-psychology
23. + Exploratory-supportive continuum of interventions
Supportive
strengthening of defenses,
development of self-esteem,
validation of feelings,
internalization of the therapeutic relationship
creation of a greater capacity to cope with disturbing feelings
Exploratory
make unconscious patterns more consciously available
increase affect tolerance,
build a capacity to delay impulsive action
provide insight into relationship problems
develop reflective functioning toward a greater appreciation of internal motivation in
the self and others
24. +
Difficulty Prescribing Medication
disorder’s symptom heterogeneity
diagnostic unreliability
presence of comorbid disorders, and the
potential for self-destructiveness.
25. +
Types of medication
SSRI’s – mood and impulsive symptoms
Small, positive effects
For symptoms in cognitive dimension
(suspiciousness, illusions, depersonalization, or
transient hallucinations), antipsychotics
Review of antidepressant, anti-anxiety,
antipsychotic, anticonvulsants, and lithium
medications, either modest or no symptom relief
26. +
Critique
DSM doesn’t mention how long symptoms have to last
May meet the criteria in 126 different ways
Division between clinical disorders and personality disorders
questionable
High co-morbidity
Psychodynamic vs. atheoretical
Recovery rates
27. +
Critique for personality disorders
Personality disorders appear to
describe the total person, rather than
a particular aspect of the person or
the result of person-in-environment
processes