Is borderline personality disorder curable?
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) can be lifelong, but it doesn’t have to be in most cases.
All posts tagged: personality disorders
Why are personality disorders difficult to distinguish from healthy personalities?
Everyone has a personality, comprised of strengths and weaknesses Get to know anyone well enough and you will begin to see that s/he struggles dealing with certain aspects of life, work, and relationships. These weaknesses in someone’s personality can even be so vulnerable that people can have acute episodes of anxiety, depression, and other psychiatric disorders. In other words, no one is perfect, nor does a healthy level of functioning depend on someone moving closer and closer to perfection over time. This basic truth makes it tricky to differentiate someone with a disordered personality from a flawed, but mostly normal personality organization. In order to determine if weaknesses in a person’s character meet criteria for a personality disorder, one of two things need to be present: 1. You have a great deal of reliable data about a person’s life across time and context, or 2. You need a great deal of experience and expertise recognizing signs and symptoms of personality pathology. Distress and impairment are often context-dependent Narcissists can be extremely high achievers. Obsessive-compulsive Personality …
How does the modern world promote schizoid personality disorder?
Schizoid Personality Disorder is a pervasive pattern of asociality, and is what many people refer to when they colloquially describe someone as “antisocial” (in the sense of lacking interest in socializing with others). Before getting into factors in modern society that promote the schizoid personality type, here are a few things to understand about schizoid PD: Schizoid PD has been grouped with other “Cluster A” personality disorders. Cluster A personality disorders are marked by “odd or eccentric behavior.” Other Cluster A disorders include Paranoid Personality Disorder & Schizotypal Personality Disorder Schizoid PD is theorized to be on the Schizophrenia spectrum, meaning that the genotype and phenotype of schizoid PD are “cousins” of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. Recent estimates suggest that 1% of the population meets criteria for schizoid personality disorder Identical twin studies show that there is a 30% concordance rate of schizoid PD between twins While there may be a significant genetic component of schizoid pd, many have speculated that aspects of modern life may be responsible for a growing number of cases …
6 Existential Anxieties That Could Be the Cause of Your Panic Attacks
Panic attacks are among the most common and most distressing symptoms I see as a therapist. Not only do people encounter some of their most primitive existential fears, such as feeling like they are dying or going crazy, panic sufferers also have to deal with the repetitive (and often unpredictable) nature of panic, and the fact that others cannot fully appreciate the intensity of the experience. Search the web and you’ll find a ton of strategies to deal with panic attacks. In my opinion, very few (none in fact that I have found) adequately address different types of panic attacks. While I do not explicitly address tips for dealing with panic here, I believe we can optimize our coping strategies for anxiety attacks by first identifying what the panic is and what it is signifying. I identify six types of panic that I have observed in clinical practice below. I do not accept that panic attacks “come out of nowhere.” While cues may not be easily identifiable, experience has taught me that there is ALWAYS …