Personality Disorders: Types, Causes and Treatment
The neurotic submerges his basic conflicts, holding down his anxieties by such means as ritualized behavior or compulsive perfectionism. In contrast, the individual with a personality disorder is driven to act out his conflicts in his total behavior patterns.
Because their problems permeate their lives, the victims of personality disorders are more difficult than neurotics to treat successfully.
Types of Personality Disorders
Antisocial Personality
The antisocial personality is just what the name implies: an individual, a man in the majority of cases, who shows no regard for the rights of others or the rules of society; who feels no guilt for this behavior; and whose only real concern is for himself.
He’s angry at the world and strikes out against it, indifferent to whom he hurts. Usually such an individual has had a bad childhood—separated from his parents, ill-treated by them, or subjected to no discipline at all. His antisocial behavior is likely to have begun when he was still a boy.
Marriage and fatherhood occasionally change such a person, but frequently the pattern persists through life.
Drug Dependence and Alcoholism
A number of authorities now believe that alcoholism—as well as addiction to other drugs—is at least partly caused by a chemical or physiological abnormality within the individual. But addictions also have their psychological aspects. They are prima facie evidence of immaturity—low self-esteem, the fear of failure, and the inability to postpone gratification.
These negative feelings the victim has about himself vanish under the influence of the drug and the sense of wellbeing it induces—thus the drug’s powerful attraction. If addiction, either to alcohol or other drugs, persists long enough, it can occupy the addict’s entire life. Work, family ties, human relationship—none of these have any call on him. His only concern is with his drugs.
Sexual Deviations
Human sexuality is a complex mix of the biological, the psychological, and the social. The ‘normal,’ and ‘abnormal,’ in sexual behavior are defined differently by various cultures and may change from time to time.
Scientist did not begin serious study of sexual behavior until recently and it is only since then that we have begun to realize that the range of ‘normal,’ sexuality—like the range of ‘normal,’ personality—is quite wide.
Many psychiatrists now classify certain sexual deviations as mental illness only if they bring unhappiness to the person who practices them or if they impair the person’s ability to function normally.
Homosexuality, the preference for members of one’s own sex as sexual partners, is now viewed in this light by many, but not all, psychiatrists.
Supporters of this position now believe that homosexuality, while possibly a sign of emotional immaturity, is an indication of illness only in persons who are unhappy with themselves as they are and would prefer to be heterosexual.
In rare instances, a person who thinks of himself or herself as belonging to the opposite sex and voluntarily undergoes a series of long and complex chemical and surgical procedures that change sex. Such persons, who are known as transsexuals, were probably the victims of hormonal problems from birth; their difficulty was primarily physiological.
On the other hand, transvestitism—the derivation of sexual pleasure from dressing in clothes of the opposite sex—seems to be related only to psychological factors.
A number of other sexual deviations also seem to be entirely psychological in origin. In all these cases the deviant behavior affords the individual more pleasure than he derives from heterosexual intercourse:
Exhibitionism: The act of displaying the genitals for sake of inflicting a shock on the unprepared viewer
Voyeurism: The derivation of sexual pleasure from watching others undress or perform sexual acts
Sadism and Masochism: The first is the derivation of pleasure from inflicting pain; the second is the opposite—the derivation of pleasure from being hurt. These two deviation often coexist in the same person
Fetishism: The derivation of sexual pleasure from contact with inanimate object, such as a shoe or underwear
Nymphomania and Satyriasis: The first is sexual insatiability in a woman; the second is the same condition in a man. The nymphomaniac and the satyr are compulsive and promiscuous in their sexual activity
Some sexual deviations such as pedophilia—sexual abuse of children—and rape are so offensive and dangerous to society that they are recognized as criminal offenses and carry heavy penalty in all civilizations.
Psychosomatic Disorders
A number of physical illnesses are closely connected with emotional stress. We describe them as psychosomatic. They generally develop in people who have a physical predisposition to the problem, and usually affect only those parts of the body that are under the control of the involuntary nervous system, such as the digestive tract, the endocrine glands, the heart, the lungs, the urinary bladder, and the skin.
Like neurotics, victims of psychosomatic disease are incapable of dealing with their conflicts openly. Instead, the emotional turmoil manifests itself in malfunction of various parts of the body.
The peptic ulcer is perhaps the classic psychosomatic disorder. It arises when the stomach produces acidic digestive juices in response to emotional stress rather than to the presence of food. If there is no food in the stomach for the juices to work on, they attack the stomach lining, eventually producing an open sore, or ulcer.
The disease is physical and requires medical treatment. But the problem that gives rise to the disease is psychological and it, too, must be dealt with if the ulcer is to heal and not recur. Other psychosomatic disorders include ulcerative colitis, rheumatoid arthritis, migraine headache, hypertension and asthma.
Sources and References
Reader’s Digest Family Health Guide and Medical Encyclopedia
Pharmacological Treatment for Pedophilic Disorder and Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder: A Review by Valdemar Landgren, Josephine Savard et al
Role of Psychosomatic Factors in Peptic Ulcer Disease by D E Hernandez, D Arandia and M Dehesa
What Is a Personality Disorder? by Theodore Millon
Alcohol Use Disorder and Antisocial and Borderline Personality Disorders by Ashley C Helle, Kenneth J Sher et al
Rich Health Editorial Team
Rich Health Editorial Team is made up of medical practitioners and experienced writers who provide information for dealing with health issues in a simple and easy-to-understand manner
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