A word about personality

General definition

Let's start with the definition of personality; Personality refers to all those characteristics that adapt in unique ways to changing internal and external environments. Personality is described as motivation, emotions, interpersonal styles, attitudes and stable and comprehensive characteristics of an individual. Understanding personality and its disorders is basically different from other branches of medicine. As C. Robert Cloninger says, man is a self-conscious being, "the object of unconsciousness is not like a machine."

Characteristics / personality assessment

Personality assessment is an organized measurement of these personality traits. Personality tests measure concepts such as depression, anger, and anxiety. Even more challenging personality concepts such as somatization, the ability to delay gratification, or suicidal potential can be measured with personality assessments. Personality evaluation is very important in the study of psychology and psychiatry.

Personality disorder

It is used to describe all its types. Personality disorder is a stable pattern of inner experiences and behaviors that are clearly the result of individual, pervasive and inflexible cultural experiences, manifested in adolescence or early adulthood. It does not change over time and causes individual discomfort or disorder.

Prevalence

Personality disorders are common and chronic. They occur in 10-20% of the general population and last for a decade. Approximately 50% of trauma patients have a personality disorder, which is often associated with other clinical syndromes. In addition, personality disorder is a predisposing factor for other mental disorders (such as substance abuse, suicide, impulse control disorders, eating disorders, and anxiety disorders) and interferes with the treatment results of many clinical syndromes and increases the individual disability and mortality of these patients.

People with asthma

Personality disorders are far more likely to avoid psychotherapy and deny their problems than people with anxiety disorders, depressive disorders, or obsessive-compulsive disorder. In general, personality disorder symptoms are self-consistent and alloplastic. People with these disorders do not feel anxious about their maladaptive behavior. Because they are usually unaware of what others perceive as symptoms in them. They often seem uninterested and impervious to treatment.

Usually the symptoms of the disease that match the criteria of one disorder also match the criteria of other disorders. Therefore, it is possible to check the defects in personality function and personality traits to diagnose. With this method, narcissistic-obsessive-compulsive-antisocial-avoidant-borderline and schizotypal personality disorders and personality disorder-trait specified (PD-TD) which do not match the criteria of any of the specified disorders can also be diagnosed.

Assessment and diagnosis of personality disorder

Diagnosis requires the assessment of the General Criteria for Personality Disorder, which are:

How much is the impact of the disorder on the level of individual and interpersonal work.
Morbid personality traits are consistent with several personality disorders.
Degradation level can be seen in personality functions and existence of dry features and in most personal and social situations.
These features disrupt the functions and their appearance is almost stable. Their existence can be followed until adolescence or early adulthood.
Destructing work with mental disorder can no longer be justified.
The destruction in the function and appearance of the features is not related to the effect of a substance or medical disease.
The destruction in the function and appearance of the features does not depend on the developmental stage or the social environment of the person.

Functional level of character

In personality, the core of personality pathology is disturbance in self and interpersonal functioning, which is placed on the continuum in the DSM-5 alternative model. Self-functions include identity and self-governance; Interpersonal functions include empathy and intimacy.

Each of the elements are used to distinguish five levels of functioning (level 0; healthy and adaptive functioning - level 1; slight impairment - level 2; moderate impairment - level 3; severe impairment and level 4; very severe impairment).

Functional destruction predicts the presence of a disorder and its severity, as well as the presence of more than one personality disorder or the presence of a very high intensity disorder. A moderate level of destruction is necessary for correct diagnosis