what on earth is a personality dissorder and how is it treated.?

Answer 1

Personality disorders form a class of mental disorders that are characterized by long-lasting rigid patterns of thought and behavior. Because of the inflexibility and pervasiveness of these patterns, they can cause serious problems and impairment of functioning for the persons who are afflicted with these disorders.

Personality disorders are seen by the American Psychiatric Association as an enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectations of the culture of the individual who exhibits it. These patterns are inflexible and pervasive across many situations. The onset of the pattern can be traced back at least to the beginning of adulthood. To be diagnosed as a personality disorder, a behavioral pattern must cause significant distress or impairment in personal, social, and/or occupational situations.

Currently, there are 10 distinct personality disorders identified:

Antisocial Personality Disorder: Lack of regard for the moral or legal standards in the local culture, marked inability to get along with others or abide by societal rules. Sometimes called psychopaths or sociopaths.

Avoidant Personality Disorder: Marked social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, and extremely sensitive to criticism.

Borderline Personality Disorder: Lack of one's own identity, with rapid changes in mood, intense unstable interpersonal relationships, marked impulsively, instability in affect and in self image.

Dependent Personality Disorder: Extreme need of other people, to a point where the person is unable to make any decisions or take an independent stand on his or her own. Fear of separation and submissive behavior. Marked lack of decisiveness and self-confidence.

Histrionic Personality Disorder: Exaggerated and often inappropriate displays of emotional reactions, approaching theatricality, in everyday behavior. Sudden and rapidly shifting emotion expressions.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder: Behavior or a fantasy of grandiosity, a lack of empathy, a need to be admired by others, an inability to see the viewpoints of others, and hypersensitive to the opinions of others.

Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder: Characterized by perfectionism and inflexibility; preoccupation with uncontrollable patterns of thought and action.

Paranoid Personality Disorder: Marked distrust of others, including the belief, without reason, that others are exploiting, harming, or trying to deceive him or her; lack of trust; belief of others' betrayal; belief in hidden meanings; unforgiving and grudge holding.

Schizoid Personality Disorder: Primarily characterized by a very limited range of emotion, both in expression of and experiencing; indifferent to social relationships.

Schizotypal Personality Disorder: Peculiarities of thinking, odd beliefs, and eccentricities of appearance, behavior, interpersonal style, and thought (e.g., belief in psychic phenomena and having magical powers).

individuals with personality disorders have many things in common:

Self-centeredness that manifests itself through a me-first, self-preoccupied attitude

Lack of individual accountability that results in a victim mentality and blaming others, society and the universe for their problems

Lack of perspective-taking and empathy

Manipulative and exploitative behavior

Unhappiness, suffering from depression and other mood and anxiety disorders

Vulnerability to other mental disorders, such as obsessive-compulsive tendencies and panic attacks

Distorted or superficial understanding of self and others' perceptions, being unable to see his or her objectionable, unacceptable, disagreeable, or self-destructive behaviors or the issues that may have contributed to the personality disorder

Socially maladaptive, changing the rules of the game, introducing new variables, or otherwise influencing the external world to conform to their own needs

No hallucinations, delusions or thought disorders (except for the brief psychotic episodes of Borderline Personality Disorder)

Each disorders need different kinds of treatments. Patient must consult a Clinical Psychiatrist.

Answer 2

You can treat a personality disorder but you probably can't cure it. Examples of personality disorders are Bipolar other wise known as manic depressive, that is where a person swings from elation and hyperness to depression or aggressiveness.
Antisocial personality disorder is what many killers have like your Unibomber type guys, they are loners, nasty can't get along in society, are odd balls, dress differently, act differently to acceptable norms. This can be similiar to a sociopath.
There are many many others.

Answer 3

There are several personality disoders "boaderline" being the most heard of, these's disoders are very hard to treat because of behaviors, in personality disorder you treat the behavior and that can take years to treat and most people loose interest or just give up. Medication really does help much, it can be frusrating.

Answer 4

There are many personality disorders (paranoid, narcissistic, antisocial, etc.). They are conditions that effect a persons character and how someone deals with others. They are treated by psychologist and mental health counselors through session and possibly medication.

Answer 5

the personality disorders are (partly) learned behaviors that control how one functions in society. Don't know that there is a "treatment" for them, other than ongoing therapy to recognize the manifestations and alter ones behaviors.

Answer 6

Plenty of info for you here