Personality and its disorders

Psychiatry ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca McKnight ◽  
Jonathan Price ◽  
John Geddes
Keyword(s):  
Personality Disorder ◽  
Mentally Ill ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Stressful Events ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
Common Features ◽  
Normal Personality ◽  
General Terms ◽  
Behavioural Characteristics ◽  
The Individual

Personality is a difficult concept to define: it is ex­tremely hard to encapsulate what makes a person ‘who they are’ in general terms. Personality is typically thought of as the set of characteristics which make us think, feel, and act in our own unique way. Personality is pervasive; people tend to behave in similar ways throughout life and across differing social and inter­personal contexts. The characteristics of personality, called traits, are a set of common features which are observed in variable degrees in different people. Traits provide a useful structure in which to describe a per­sonality: Box 31.1 shows some common personality traits. Some traits may be perceived as an asset to the individual, while others are more of a nuisance. We all have a little more or a little less of any given trait. The word ‘temperament’ rather than personality is used to describe the behavioural characteristics dis­played by young children. This is because our person­ality takes time to develop; it is shaped by a multitude of environmental, biological, and factors which interact throughout early life. By our late teens or early twenties, the majority of individuals have the set of traits which define the personality we will have for the rest of our lives. Having an understanding of an individual’s per­sonality helps clinicians to predict their patients’ re­sponse to illness and its treatment. The majority of us have some less favourable aspects to our personality, but we work around them and/ or have more prominent favourable traits that allow us to get on with our lives. For a minority of people, their less favourable traits are so prominent that they cause problems for themselves or for those around them. It is these people who we think of as having a personality disorder. It is extremely difficult to draw a line between normal personality and personality disorder, so this simple pragmatic approach is helpful in clinical practice. People with a personality disorder may: … ● have difficulties with social situations and relationships; ● have difficulties controlling their feelings and/ or behaviour; ● react in unusual ways to illness or to treatment; ● behave in unusual ways when mentally ill; ● have more extreme or unusual reactions to stressful events; ● behave in ways that are detrimental to themselves or others ● be more prone to developing other types of mental disorder.

Culture’s Constraints

2018 ◽  
pp. 61-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michele J. Gelfand ◽  
Nava Caluori ◽  
Sarah Gordon ◽  
Jana Raver ◽  
Lisa Nishii ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Psychological Processes ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Societal Factors ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Cultural Processes ◽  
The Individual

Research on culture has generally ignored social situations, and research on social situations has generally ignored culture. In bringing together these two traditions, we show that nations vary considerably in the strength of social situations, and this is a key conceptual and empirical bridge between macro and distal cultural processes and micro and proximal psychological processes. The model thus illustrates some of the intervening mechanisms through which distal societal factors affect individual processes. It also helps to illuminate why cultural differences persist at the individual level, as they are adaptive to chronic differences in the strength of social situations. The strength of situations across cultures can provide new insights into cultural differences in a wide range of psychological processes.

scholarly journals Standardization and Validation of the Personality Disorder Inventory PSGP-IPDI

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 112-122
Author(s):  
K Abilash ◽  
P Sindhuja Manisha Kamini ◽  
T Jothimani
Keyword(s):  
Personality Disorder ◽  
Psychiatric Disorder ◽  
Internal Consistency ◽  
Psychiatric Patients ◽  
Personality Inventory ◽  
Clinical Population ◽  
Positive Correlation ◽  
Characteristic Behavior ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship

Background: Personality is the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine characteristic behavior and thought. Aim: To standardize and validate personality disorder inventory in clinical population. Methods and Samples: 100 Psychiatric patients were taken as a sample as a clinical population in various hospital Coimbatore age ranged 28 – 58. PSGP- IPDI- Indian Personality Disorder Inventory assessed for 100 psychiatric disorder individuals. Results: The relationship among the disorders of the personality inventory shows both positive and negative correlations among the dimensions most of the dimensions exhibited positive correlation. The internal consistency of the inventory is reliable.Conclusion: The personality disorder inventory is reliable and significant and this tool can be administered on the clinical population.

Existentialism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles B. Guignon
Keyword(s):  
Modern World ◽  
Not Given ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
Jean Paul ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Treat All ◽  
Scientific Systems

The term ‘existentialism’ is sometimes reserved for the works of Jean-Paul Sartre, who used it to refer to his own philosophy in the 1940s. But it is more often used as a general name for a number of thinkers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries who made the concrete individual central to their thought. Existentialism in this broader sense arose as a backlash against philosophical and scientific systems that treat all particulars, including humans, as members of a genus or instances of universal laws. It claims that our own existence as unique individuals in concrete situations cannot be grasped adequately in such theories, and that systems of this sort conceal from us the highly personal task of trying to achieve self-fulfilment in our lives. Existentialists therefore start out with a detailed description of the self as an ‘existing individual’, understood as an agent involved in a specific social and historical world. One of their chief aims is to understand how the individual can achieve the richest and most fulfilling life in the modern world. Existentialists hold widely differing views about human existence, but there are a number of recurring themes in their writings. First, existentialists hold that humans have no pregiven purpose or essence laid out for them by God or by nature; it is up to each one of us to decide who and what we are through our own actions. This is the point of Sartre’s definition of existentialism as the view that, for humans, ‘existence precedes essence’. What this means is that we first simply exist - find ourselves born into a world not of our own choosing - and it is then up to each of us to define our own identity or essential characteristics in the course of what we do in living out our lives. Thus, our essence (our set of defining traits) is chosen, not given. Second, existentialists hold that people decide their own fates and are responsible for what they make of their lives. Humans have free will in the sense that, no matter what social and biological factors influence their decisions, they can reflect on those conditions, decide what they mean, and then make their own choices as to how to handle those factors in acting in the world. Because we are self-creating or self-fashioning beings in this sense, we have full responsibility for what we make of our lives. Finally, existentialists are concerned with identifying the most authentic and fulfilling way of life possible for individuals. In their view, most of us tend to conform to the ways of living of the ‘herd’: we feel we are doing well if we do what ‘one’ does in familiar social situations. In this respect, our lives are said to be ‘inauthentic’, not really our own. To become authentic, according to this view, an individual must take over their own existence with clarity and intensity. Such a transformation is made possible by such profound emotional experiences as anxiety or the experience of existential guilt. When we face up to what is revealed in such experiences, existentialists claim, we will have a clearer grasp of what is at stake in life, and we will be able to become more committed and integrated individuals.

The Mentally Ill in Your Caseload

2016 ◽  
pp. 409-420
Author(s):  
Donald W. Winnicott
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Social Worker ◽  
Mentally Ill ◽  
Emotional Development ◽  
The Social ◽  
Dynamic Psychology ◽  
The Individual

In this talk delivered to social workers, Winnicott brings his understanding of professional psychiatry, with its attempts to treat severe mental illness using a more humane approach, together with his belief in dynamic psychology—the emotional development of the individual derived from the study of psychoanalysis—into a closer connection with one another. He charts a brief outline of psychoanalysis and interprets the psychoses through it. He sees the importance of early environmental factors in mental illness and the possible effects of this on maturation. He comments on depression both normal and psychotic in type, on his theories of personalization, of feeling real, and, through early dependence, the gradual growth of the functioning self. He also gives an empathic view of the role of the social worker in the difficult work of treating acute mental ill health.

Can linear enamel hypoplasia be used as a novel welfare indicator in pigs?

2007 ◽  
Vol 2007 ◽  
pp. 40-40
Author(s):  
E. Genever ◽  
K. Dobney ◽  
D.M. Broom
Keyword(s):  
Stressful Life Event ◽  
Stressful Events ◽  
Environmental Stressors ◽  
Developmental Stress ◽  
Enamel Hypoplasia ◽  
Linear Enamel Hypoplasia ◽  
Welfare Indicator ◽  
Calcified Tissue ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Incremental Lines

Linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH) produces abnormal incremental lines or depressions in teeth enamel caused by a deficiency in the growth of calcified tissue. The depth and width of the LEH events can indicate the severity and duration of a stressful life event. LEH can be used to investigate developmental stress, as it will occur when the individual is unable to cope with environmental stressors during development, such as food shortage, pathological challenge or other stressful events. The LEH technique has been used by zoo-archaeologists to obtain information on early domestication and husbandry practices in ancient populations of pigs, where high levels of LEH have been found to correspond to birth and weaning. The objective of this work was to investigate if LEH was present in modern pigs and whether it could be used as a welfare indicator.

scholarly journals Personality and occupational stress in the field of mine rescue and intervention

2019 ◽  
Vol 290 ◽  
pp. 12018
Author(s):  
Izabella Kovacs ◽  
Artur George Găman ◽  
Angelica Călămar ◽  
Daniel Pupăzan ◽  
Cristian Nicolescu
Keyword(s):  
Personality Traits ◽  
Occupational Stress ◽  
Stressful Events ◽  
Individual Response ◽  
Internal Resources ◽  
Emergency Situations ◽  
Stress Symptoms ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Rescue Personnel

The special conditions created by emergency situations are likely to lead to psychological and emotional strains. For part of intervention and rescue personnel, these are accompanied by mobilization of internal resources, while in others these may lead to disabling phenomena as well as the occurrence of stress symptoms. Some people have a constitutional or psychological vulnerability to the action of traditional stressors, being more prone to psychic stress. The multifactorial complex of non-specific factors that modulate the individual response necessarily includes personality traits, acquired during the individual’s experience and manifested in the context of its interactions with the social network, as well as in actual situations (stressful events). This paper presents the results of a series of psychological personality assessments of intervention and rescue personnel, in the context of analysing the relationship between personality traits and the risk of occupational stress occurrence.

scholarly journals Avoidant Personality Disorder, Traits, and Type

2012 ◽  
pp. 548-565
Author(s):  
Charles A. Sanislow ◽  
Katelin da Cruz ◽  
May O. Gianoli ◽  
Elizabeth Reagan
Keyword(s):  
Personality Disorder ◽  
Social Anxiety ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Interpersonal Style ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
Avoidant Personality Disorder ◽  
Optimal Organization ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

In this chapter, the evolution of the avoidant personality disorder (AVPD) diagnosis, its current status, and future possibilities are reviewed. AVPD is a chronic and enduring condition involving a poor sense of self and anxiety in social situations, and it is marked by fears of rejection and a distant interpersonal stance. AVPD may be conceptualized at the severe end of a continuum of social anxiety. In the extreme, traits, mechanisms, and symptoms become integral to chronic dysfunction in personality and interpersonal style. While AVPD is a valid diagnostic construct, the optimal organization of AVPD criteria for the diagnosis, and the relationship of avoidant personality traits to anxiety, remain to be determined.

Feminist Security and Security Studies

2018 ◽  
pp. 44-59
Author(s):  
Laura Sjoberg
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
International Security ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
General Terms ◽  
The Individual

Feminist approaches use gender lenses to look for gender in international security, and observe what is then made visible. In Security Studies the word “gender,” refers to more than someone’s apparent sex; it refers to the divisions that we see and make between those understood to be men and those understood to be women and also the ways those traits operate in social and political life—at the individual level, in social interaction, in workplaces, in organizations, in politics, etc.This chapter takes stock of Feminist Security Studies, accomplishing three tasks: First, it situates Feminist Security Studies within and around security studies, substantively, intellectually, and categorically. Second, it discusses some of the major contributions of Feminist Security Studies, in general terms and with examples. Finally, it looks for the potential futures of Feminist Security Studies itself and security studies more broadly with the integration of feminist theorizing.

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