Personality and Mental Health

Transcription

1 Personality, Mental Health, and Physical Health PSYC Lecture 19 Dr. J. Nicol Personality and Mental Health Personality disorders: inflexible and maladaphve behaviour pajerns that cause distress and/or impair the ability to funchon and get along with other people EsHmated that 15% of the adult populahon meets the diagnoshc criteria for at least one personality disorder (Grant et al., 2004) About 30% who commit suicide and 40% who attempt suicide are thought to have a personality disorder Defining Personality Disorders An unusual and extreme degree of variahon in one or more personality ajributes Aberrant behavioural pajern causing major interpersonal problems for the person or for others Social in nature: necessarily about how interpersonal relahons Emerge in childhood or adolescence and then are stable and resistant to change Symptoms tend to be ego-syntonic

2 Personality Disorders by Cluster Cluster A - Odd and eccentric: characterized by distorted thinking Schizoid, schizotypal, paranoid Cluster B - DramaHc and emohonal: characterized by problems relahng with others NarcissisHc, anhsocial, borderline, histrionic Cluster C - Anxious and fearful cluster: characterized by fear and unhappiness Avoidant, dependent, obsessive-compulsive Major Personality Disorders Schizotypal personality disorder: idiosyncrahc; odd and eccentric beliefs and behaviour; strange and awkward interpersonal behaviour; uncomfortable in close relahonships Poor contact between mental life and external reality NarcissisHc personality disorder: sense of enhtlement, exploitahve; grandiose sense of self, desperate need to be admired, excessive concern with appearance; dominant and arrogant; emohonal instability Difficult, if not impossible to treat because, more than any other personality disorder, it is ego-syntonic AnHsocial personality disorder: decei`ulness and manipulahon; illegal achvihes; impulsive; irritable and aggressive

3 Blair et al. (1997) Major Personality Disorders Borderline personality disorder: hallmark is emohonal instability; confused behaviour; lack of sense of selfidenhty, self-harming behaviour Probably the most severe of the personality disorders 75% of those diagnosed are female Splibng: unable to handle the complex reality that people have a mix of good and bad characterishcs, so oversimplifies by jumping from one extreme evaluahon to the other Herman et al. (1989)

4 Ogata et al. (1990) Herman et al. (1989) Table 1 Descriptive Statistics for Contextual Features of SMB Variable M SD Contemplation Not at all A few seconds A few minutes Less than one hour Less than one day days More than 2 days Alcohol/drug use Pain No pain Little pain Moderate pain Severe pain Friends SMB incidents (4.11) (3.17) Note. N 89. SMB Self-mutilative behavior. Nock & Prinstein (2005)

5 Major Personality Disorders Avoidant personality disorder: fear of rejechon, crihcism, and failure causes avoidance of social interachon Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder: extreme need for order and structure; disproporhonately rule-bound; unproduchve workaholics; perfechonishc; hoarding; inability to delegate tasks Possibly the most common of the personality disorders Less impaired in their daily funchoning than people with other personality disorders (Skodol et al., 2002) SomeHmes the disorder is experienced as ego-syntonic

6 What is Abnormal? There is not a clear line that unambiguously separates psychopathological personality or behaviour from normality (Furr & Funder, 1998) Many of the characterishc symptoms of personality disorders are frequently observed in ourselves and others Elements of some of the personality disorders may be aspects of yourself that you highly value It is possible to think of each personality disorder as an exaggerated version of a trait, that when inside the normal range, can be advantageous (Oldham & Morris, 1995) Personality and Physical Health Men rated by others as more conscienhous and open to experience, and women rated by others as more emohonally stable and agreeable, tend to live longer (Jackson et al., 2015) Chronically high levels of hoshlity (i.e., Type-A personality) is associated with a variety of negahve health outcomes (e.g., Friedman & Rosenman, 1959)

7 Personality and Physical Health NegaHve emohonality is associated with poor health Depression and withdrawal from life are risk factors for heart disease (Booth-Kewley & Friedman, 1987) Research has been contradictory with respect to the relahonship between neurohcism and physical wellbeing (Weiss & Costa, 2005; Wilson et al., 2004) ConscienHous is associated with posihve health outcomes (Atherton et al., 2014; Jokela et al., 2013)