Personality Disorders
I wrote this reflection for my problem identification class at the University of Rochester. The professor asked us to reflect on a particular reading, the reading for this reflection the chapter on Personality Disorders in the DSM-5. I have included my reflection below.
Personality Disorders
This week, I continued my reading of the DSM, this time in the DSM-5-TR, and read the section on Personality Disorders. This section describes a personality disorder as an individual's enduring pattern of behavior that differs extensively from the norms of a society such that it causes considerable impairment. It also typically occurs in early adulthood and is usually pervasive throughout the individual's life. Ten particular kinds of personality disorders were identified and grouped into clusters. Cluster A represents odd or eccentric personalities, which include schizoid, schizotypal, and paranoid. Cluster B represents dramatic and erratic personalities and includes antisocial, borderline, histrionic, and narcissistic. Cluster C represents fearful and anxious personalities and includes avoidant, dependant, and obsessive-compulsive.
I heard mention in the chapter of an alternative way to look at these personality disorders, by a dimensional model. I have not yet had a chance to read this part of the DSM. The way I would prefer to look at things is that any individual who develops a personality disorder does so as a coping mechanism for trauma, either trauma met in their lifetime or multigenerational trauma passed on in their genes and environment. I would also prefer to look at these as spectrums rather than categories, for example, a narcissistic coping spectrum or a dependent coping spectrum. I also would prefer to reframe these as behaviors that could be unlearned by the individual, with the support of personal development, society, new skills, and technologies.
In my practice as a counselor, I do not want to stigmatize people. I want to see people beyond classification, each person in a class of their own with their dignity and their own path to find a place in the world no matter who they are. I hope we can devise a new way of articulating personality disorders to move from a permanent category to a coping mechanism for trauma and a flexible spectrum.
