Psychology 2030A/B Chapter 14: Personality Disorders.pdf

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2030A/B
• Professor: Ian Nicholson

Document Summary

Personality disorders are chronic; they do not come and go but originate in childhood and continue throughout adulthood. Personality disorder: a persistent pattern of emotions, cognitions, and behavior that results in enduring emotional distress for the person affec ted and/or for others and may cause difficulties with work and relationships. Having this disorder may or may not distress the affected person and may or may not affect others. The distinction between problems of degree and problems of kind is usually described in terms of dimensions and categories. The issue that continues to be debated in the field is whether personality disorders are extreme versions of otherwise normal personality variations (dimensions) or ways of relating that are different from psychologically healthy behavior (categories) Many have pushed for a change from categorical to dimensional approaches in the dsm. The main advantage of the dsm remaining categorical is convenience with simplification, however, comes problems.