Personality Disorders: What Are They?
Webster’s online dictionary describes it as “The complex of all the attributes--behavioral, temperamental, emotional and mental--that characterize a unique individual;” Everyone has one and it is the thing that makes every individual just that, an individual. It is called personality. Sometimes however, it can go astray and be completely out of the “normal” that it can cause difficulty in how an individual relates to the environment and to others around them. Psychologists have named people with that much of an extreme in personality as possibly having what they call a personality disorder. They can feel lonely, unhappy, and unaccepted by the general public. There are nine different kinds of disorders that have been identified by psychologists and can be classified into three different groups, clusters A, B, and C.
Each personality is grouped by how each disorder causes the individual to behave and by their symptoms. Cluster A is where you would find the disorders that are unusual or bizarre and are made up of paranoid, schizoid, and schizotypal personality disorders. Cluster B is where all the disorders that cause dramatic, emotional, and erratic behavior is classified. The disorders in Cluster B are anti-social, borderline, histrionic, and narcissistic personality disorders. Cluster C disorders are where one would find the anxious or fearful disorders and consist of avoidant, dependent, and obsessive-compulsive personality disorders.
The first disorder in Cluster A is the paranoid personality disorder. People with paranoid personality disorders are very untrusting and leery of other people. They always have feelings of being lied to, tricked, or used by everyone including friends, family, and significant others. They constantly suspect that even people that are closest to them are not being faithful and trustworthy. They look for concealed meanings in gestures or in conversations. They can blow up out of anger at any thought or believed confirmation of...
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