• personality disorder: enduring patterns of perceiving, relating to and thinking about the environment and oneself. . . . that are inflexible and maladaptive - cause functional impairment or subjective distress

• chronic• originate in childhood – continue as an adult• may or may not distress the person with the disorder• listed on Axis II of the DSM-IV

• Cluster A: odd or eccentric beliefs• Paranoid p.d.• Schizoid p.d.• Schizotypal p.d.

• Cluster B: dramatic, emotional, erratic• Antisocial p.d.• Borderline p.d.• Narcissistic p.d.• Histrionic p.d.

• Cluster C: fearful disorders• Obsessive-Compulsive p.d.• Avoidant p.d.• Dependent p.d.

• failure to conform to social norms

• deceitfulness

• impulsivity

• aggressiveness – repeated fights or assaults

• disregard safety of self and others

• irresponsibility

• lack of remorse

• psychopathypsychopathy: focuses on : focuses on personality traits – some personality traits – some psychopaths do not have legal or psychopaths do not have legal or severe interpersonal problemssevere interpersonal problems

• Glibness/superficial charm• Grandiose sense of self-worth• Prone to boredom/need stimulation• Pathological lying• Conning/manipulative• Lack of remorse

• Crowe • “adopted away” children of felons had significantly higher

criminality

• Eysenck & Eysenck criminality concordance rate

- Monozygotic – 55%- Dyzygotic – 13%

• under-arousal hypothesis: abnormally low level of cortical arousal

• fearlessness hypothesis: higher threshold for experiencing fear than others

• differences in autonomic arousal• galvanic skin response (GSR): measure of sweating

and autonomic arousal

• coercive family process – parents give into children to avoid problems

• trauma

• SES disadvantage

• after age 40 – the psychopath begins to “burn out”

• frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment

• unstable and intense interpersonal relationships

• unstable self-image or sense of self

• impulsivity in ways that are harmful

• recurrent suicidal behavior or self-mutilating

• affective instability

• chronic feelings of emptiness

• inappropriate anger

• transient paranoid ideation – severe dissociation

• Based on a bio-social theory of BPD.

• medications:• tricyclic antidepressants and lithium

• dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) – Linehan • help cope with stressors that trigger suicidal behaviors –

learn to identify and regulate emotions

• histrionic personality disorder: express emotions in an overly dramatic fashion – often seductive in appearance - speech is vague, impressionistic

• Lilienfeld and colleagues • Histrionic overlaps with antisocial

p.d. – females histrionic – while males antisocial

• narcissisic personality disorder: pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy

• Kohut – caused by a lack of empathic “mirroring” by parents early in development – child is fixated on self-centered grandiose stage of development

• paranoid personality disorder: excessively mistrustful and suspicious of others without justification

• schizoid personality disorder: pattern of detachment from social relationships combined with a limited range of emotions in interpersonal situations

• schizotypal personality disorder: social isolation combined with odd or eccentric beliefs

• preoccupied with details, rules, lists, order, preoccupied with details, rules, lists, order, or schedules – point of activity becomes lostor schedules – point of activity becomes lost

• excessively devoted to work and excessively devoted to work and productivity to exclusion of friends and productivity to exclusion of friends and leisureleisure

• inflexible about matters of moralityinflexible about matters of morality• can’t discard worn out itemscan’t discard worn out items• can’t delegate tasks to otherscan’t delegate tasks to others• miserly spendingmiserly spending• rigidity and stubbornrigidity and stubborn

• avoidant personality disorder: pattern of social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, and hypersensitivity to negative evaluation

• behavioral intervention techniques for anxiety and social skills problems

• systematic desensitization• behavioral rehearsal

• dependent personality disorder: excessive need to be taken care of that leads to submissive and clinging behavior and fears of separation

• agree with others even when they disagree to avoid rejection – cling to relationships