Personality and Dissociative Disorders: Classification and Key Features

Personality and Dissociative Disorders

Overview

This section explores the classification of personality disorders into three clusters based on characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving, as well as the concept of dissociative identity disorder. Understanding these disorders is essential for recognizing abnormal patterns of personality and identity in clinical psychology.

Cluster A Personality Disorders: Odd and Eccentric Behaviours

• Definition: Cluster A personality disorders are characterized by odd, eccentric thinking or behavior. Individuals may appear peculiar or detached from reality.

• Key Disorders:

  • Paranoid Personality Disorder: Distrust and suspicion of others without sufficient basis.

  • Schizoid Personality Disorder: Detachment from social relationships and limited emotional expression.

  • Schizotypal Personality Disorder: Acute discomfort in close relationships, cognitive or perceptual distortions, and eccentricities of behavior.

• Example: A person who avoids social interactions and exhibits unusual beliefs or magical thinking.

Cluster B Personality Disorders: Dramatic and Erratic Behaviours

• Definition: Cluster B personality disorders involve dramatic, overly emotional, or unpredictable thinking or behavior.

• Key Disorders:

  • Antisocial Personality Disorder: Disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others.

  • Borderline Personality Disorder: Instability in interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affect, with marked impulsivity.

  • Histrionic Personality Disorder: Excessive emotionality and attention-seeking behavior.

  • Narcissistic Personality Disorder: Grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy.

• Example: A person who manipulates others for personal gain and shows little remorse for harmful actions.

Working the Scientific Literacy Model: The Criminal Psychopath

• Criminal Psychopath: Often associated with antisocial personality disorder, characterized by persistent antisocial behavior, impaired empathy, and bold, disinhibited traits.

• Scientific Literacy Model: Involves evaluating evidence, understanding research methods, and applying findings to real-world cases such as criminal behavior in psychopaths.

• Example: Research on brain differences in psychopaths and their implications for criminal responsibility.

• Additional info: Psychopathy is not a formal DSM-5 diagnosis but overlaps with antisocial personality disorder.

Cluster C Personality Disorders: Anxious and Fearful Behaviours

• Definition: Cluster C personality disorders are marked by anxious, fearful thinking or behavior.

• Key Disorders:

  • Avoidant Personality Disorder: Social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, and hypersensitivity to negative evaluation.

  • Dependent Personality Disorder: Excessive need to be taken care of, leading to submissive and clinging behavior.

  • Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD): Preoccupation with orderliness, perfectionism, and control.

• Example: An individual who avoids social situations due to fear of criticism or rejection.

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)

• Definition: Dissociative Identity Disorder is characterized by the presence of two or more distinct personality states or identities that recurrently take control of an individual's behavior.

• Symptoms:

  • Disruption of identity, memory, consciousness, or perception.

  • Gaps in recall of everyday events, personal information, or traumatic events.

• Etiology: Often associated with severe trauma during early childhood, usually extreme, repetitive physical, sexual, or emotional abuse.

• Example: A person who alternates between different identities, each with its own name, history, and characteristics.

Table: Comparison of Personality Disorder Clusters

Cluster	Main Features	Example Disorders
A	Odd, eccentric	Paranoid, Schizoid, Schizotypal
B	Dramatic, emotional, erratic	Antisocial, Borderline, Histrionic, Narcissistic
C	Anxious, fearful	Avoidant, Dependent, Obsessive-Compulsive (OCPD)