PSC 162 Chapter Notes - Chapter 17: Paranoid Personality Disorder, American Psychiatric Association, Schizotypal Personality Disorder
Document Summary
People are different, & these differences have important implications for mental & physical health. Personality disorders are configurations of traits that cause serious problems for the people who have them & the others who must deal with those people. The diagnostic & statistical manual of the american psychiatric association describes a wide variety of mental problems, including personality disorders. The new edition of the manual, dsm - 5, includes both an older, traditional & a new, more scientific approach to the personality disorders. The purposes of every edition of the dsm have been to make psychological diagnosis more objective & to provide useful categories for various purposes ranging from scientific research to billing. All personality disorders have 2 essential characteristics: They are unusually extreme in a way that generally entails a distortion of reality. They cause problems for the self or others. Most , if not all, personality disorders are also social & stable.
