Psychology is the study of human behaviour. It seeks to look at the motivational drives within an individual and offer an explanation to the behaviour that is demonstrated

1. Axes of Personality Disorders
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Personality disorders are like tips of icebergs. They rest on a foundation of causes and effects, interactions
and events, emotions and cognitions, functions and dysfunctions that together form the patient and make him
or her what s/he is.
The DSM uses five axes to analyze, classify, and describe these data. The patient (or subject) presents
himself to a mental health diagnostician, is evaluated, tests are administered, questionnaires fulfilled, and a
diagnosis rendered. The diagnostician uses the DSM's five axes to "make sense" and meaningfully organize
of the information he had gathered in this process.
Axis I demands that he specify all the patient's clinical mental health problems that are not personality
disorders or mental retardation. Thus, Axis I includes issues first diagnosed in infancy, childhood, or
adolescence; cognitive problems (e.g., delirium, dementia, amnesia); mental disorders due to a medical
condition (for instance, dysfunctions caused by brain injury or metabolic diseases); substance-related
disorders; schizophrenia and psychosis; mood disorders; anxiety and panic; somatoform disorders; factitious
disorders; dissociative disorders; sexual paraphilias; eating disorders; impulse control problems and
adjustment issues.
We will discuss Axis II at length in our next articles. It comprises personality disorders and mental retardation
(interesting conjunction!).
If the patient suffers from medical conditions that affect his state of mind and mental health, these are noted
under Axis III. Some psychological problems are directly caused by medical issues (hyperthyroidism causes
depression). In other cases, the latter are concurrent with or exacerbate the former. Virtually all biological
illnesses may provoke changes in the patient's psychological make-up, behavior, cognitive functioning, and
emotional landscape.
But the machinery of life - both body and "soul" - is reactive as well as proactive. It is molded by one's
psychosocial circumstances and environment. Life crises, stresses, deficiencies, and inadequate support all
conspire to destabilize and, if sufficiently harsh, ruin one's mental health. The DSM enumerates dozens of
adverse influences that should be recorded by the diagnostician under Axis IV: death in the family or of a
close friend; health problems; divorce; remarriage; abuse; doting or smothering parenting; neglect; sibling
rivalry; social isolation; discrimination; life cycle transition (such as retirement); unemployment; workplace
bullying; housing or economic problems; limited or no access to health care services; incarceration or
litigation; traumas and many more events and situations.
Finally, the DSM recognizes that the clinician's direct impression of the patient is at least as important as any
"objective" data he may gather during the evaluation phase. Axis V allows the diagnostician to record his
judgment of "the individual's overall level of functioning". This, admittedly, is a vague remit, open to ambiguity
and bias. To counter these risk, the DSM recommends that mental health professionals use the Global
assessment of Functioning (GAF) Scale. Merely administering this structured test forces the diagnostician to
formulate his views rigorously and to weed out cultural and social prejudices.
Having gone through this long and convoluted process, the therapist, psychologist, psychiatrist, or social
worker now has a complete picture of the subject's life, personal history, medical background, environment,
and psyche. She is now ready to move on and formally diagnose a personality disorder with or without
co-morbid (concurrent) conditions.
But what is a personality disorder? There are so many of them and they strike us as either so similar or so
dissimilar! What are the strands that bind them together? What are the common features of all personality
disorders?
If you want to learn more, you may consider to visit:
http://evolutionary-psychology.net/
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