Personality disorder, which is characterized by rigid, maladaptive personality traits and personal discomfort, negatively affects an individual's work, family and social life. It appears in many forms such as incompatibility, non-cooperation, causing distress in others, inefficiency, lack of empathy, failure in interpersonal relationships, impulsivity, rigidity, immorality, excessive pessimism. Stating that individuals with personality disorder try to adapt themselves to the environment rather than the environment, experts draw attention to the role of family and social environment in the development of personality disorder.
Clinical Psychologist Sera Elbaşoğlu from Üsküdar University NPISTANBUL Hospital pointed out that personality disorder negatively affects one's work, family and social life.
"The personality we develop over many years is an established way of handling life's challenges, a certain way of relating to other people," said Sera Elbaşoğlu, "One person is dependent, another is defiant and aggressive, another is shy and avoids social contact, another is more concerned with his or her appearance and flattering his or her own fragile self than building deep and honest relationships with people. None of these people can be diagnosed with a personality disorder, unless these patterns of behavior are very old, have invaded the person's whole life and have impaired their functioning. Personality disorder is mentioned when personality traits are rigid, disruptive, cause significant impairment in functioning and create personal discomfort."
Personality disorder begins to take shape in adulthood
Clinical Psychologist Sera Elbaşoğlu stated that personality disorders are persistent behavioral patterns and internal experiences that impair social or professional functionality and said, "Personality disorders are common and cause severe disruptions in people's lives. Personality disorder; These behavioral patterns and internal experiences that negatively affect people's adaptation to society, work, family and social lives are in the form of long-term adaptation disorder and the presence of rigid tendencies. This disorder begins to take shape in late adolescence or young adulthood. In order to be diagnosed with a personality disorder, the individual must first and foremost have impairments in his/her social adaptation and interpersonal relationships, and this must continue for a long time and be permanent."
What are the defining characteristics of personality disorder?
Clinical Psychologist Sera Elbaşoğlu expressed the defining characteristics of personality disorder as follows:
"If the defining characteristics of personality disorder are shown in a long list; incompatibility, inability to care for others, inability to cooperate, causing distress in others, inefficiency, lack of empathy, failure to shape and maintain interpersonal relationships, inability to learn from experiences, impulsivity, rigidity, immorality, excessive pessimism, self-destructive behaviors, poor self-direction, poor sense of humor, inability to be resilient under stress can be observed in many personality disorder cases."
Personality disorders cause serious problems in society!
"Personality disorders are not uniform; however, they have common characteristics," said Sera Elbaşoğlu and continued her words as follows:
"For example; these people repeat mistakes and cannot learn lessons. Established behavior patterns are rigidly preserved. They deviate from the valid measures of the society in their thinking and reasoning skills and show behaviors contrary to the society. Difficulties with impulse control are common. They persist since childhood or early adolescence. However, they usually begin to take shape in late adolescence and young adulthood. It leads to a significant deterioration in social and professional life and severe distress. People usually do not want to change their own behaviors and attitudes because they have adopted them, but sometimes these behaviors and attitudes are foreign to them and they want to change them, complaining that they are aware of them but cannot change them.
They are trying to adapt the environment to themselves, not themselves to the environment!
"In general, it leads to conflict and friction with the environment; the person tries to fit the environment to themselves, not themselves to the environment. There are various types of personality disorder and scientific research has shown that both psychological factors and hereditary factors are involved in all of them. However, in each personality disorder and in each person, the effects of these are different in different ways and at different levels."
Genetic predisposition, family attitudes and traumas trigger personality disorders
Sera Elbaşoğlu stated that the factors underlying personality disorders are considered as genetic predisposition, early attachment experiences, traumatic life events, family environment and sociocultural and political forces and said, "These factors are shaped by the interaction of biochemical/neuroanatomical, psychological and sociocultural factors. Scientific studies indicate that genetic factors play a role in some personality disorders. In terms of environmental influences, it is known that family and social environment have important effects on the development of personality disorders. It is known that inappropriate family attitudes in childhood, irregular, insecure, severe social and economic problems, children growing up under severe punitive attitudes, growing up in an environment where boundaries and rules are not sufficiently clear, too flexible or rigid are known to have effects. However, it is very rare that a single negative event in childhood can lead to a mental problem in later life. The role of the continuity and total effect of negative experiences in the context of the child's development has a share in the emergence of symptoms."
Psychotherapy methods are applied in treatment
Stating that various psychotherapy methods are applied in the treatment of personality disorders, Elbaşoğlu stated that individual and group treatment methods are available and concluded his words as follows: "Dynamic psychotherapy, dialectical behavior therapy, schema therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy are among the psychotherapy methods applied. Psychotherapy of personality disorders are long-term therapies. It is inevitable that a sincere change will take time as it is related to the person's established emotions and behaviors. If deemed necessary in the treatment of personality disorders, medication can be prescribed by the physician for the symptoms. Over time, personality disorders may partially improve.
Advancing age can make a personality disorder more entrenched
While maturity with age can have a positive effect especially in some types of personality disorders, in others it can cause negative behavioral patterns to become well-established. Personality disorders are difficult to treat as they lead to lifelong social maladjustment. Sometimes short-term hospitalization and medication may be necessary to control suicidal and aggressive behaviors during the de-escalation of crises. Hospitalization is also useful for the development of a long-term treatment plan. It aims to stabilize behavior, strengthen impulse control, and reduce self-destructive and impulsive behaviors. Mental maturation and deep changes and behavioral changes can be achieved through outpatient psychotherapy as it requires long-term treatment."
