10 disorders that are confused with personality traits

We often relate a person’s “extravagant” actions to their character or personality. But what if all this hides something more? In their book Cognitive Therapy of Personality Disorders, American psychotherapists Aaron Beck and Arthur Freeman reveal the secrets of human temperament.

O awesome.club studied the work of these scientists and prepared for you a guide of 10 character traits that can bring a lot of problems to people who have such characteristics, if you don’t keep control.

This category includes anyone who aspires to relax more and work less. Of course, this is a common and recurring human desire, but some go too far. For example, if for an entire year a worker at a certain company took numerous sick leaves, asked for vacations and several days off, and still always arrives late, a psychologist might diagnose that person with the antisocial personality disorder.

Common symptoms:

frequent lies that are not justified desire to live at the expense of others frequent resignations without other plans, that is, the habit of abandoning projects and jobs without evaluating the consequences first, the habit of spending money on different things than those previously planned (went to buy food at the supermarket and came back with a new video game).

Time management and a reward system will be of extreme help in the fight against antisocial disorder. It will be enough to establish what kind of gift you can give yourself for meeting a certain goal and sticking to the plan faithfully, developing a habit. In this type of disorder, psychologists also recommend the “review of choices” exercise: a problem is detailed, ways to solve it and the advantages and disadvantages of each one are determined. This will help to make decisions rationally.

Shyness fed more every day, over time, can turn into total alienation and unwillingness to establish links with the outside world. People who have this type of disorder stop feeling strong emotions and try to avoid any kind of contact with other people. Therefore, they often choose remote work or other activities where they do not need to establish any communication.

When the case gets worse, it can generate the schizoid personality disorder, who has the following symptoms:

Indifference to criticism and praise Absence of close friends or the presence of only one friend Inclination to dream a lot and unrealistically Excessive sensitivity, which it is impossible or afraid to express to others.

The development of the disease can be prevented in different ways. One of the most effective are group activities such as drawing, language courses, yoga or pilates.

To combat the development of misanthropy, it is advisable to resort to a simple trick: instead of using the phrase “I don’t like people”, say “I don’t like this” (a personality characteristic or a habit of other people, for example). This fact will allow forming a new perception, favorable to contact and socialization.

This category includes those who “push with their bellies” all kinds of commitments. Everything is expressed in the habit of postponing what needs to be done for “some day”. Untreated procrastination can lead the individual to a passive-aggressive personality disorderwhich often escalates into chronic depression.

A little rebelliousness at school or university is a natural phenomenon, and there’s no need to make a fuss about it. What may indicate that procrastination is entering a new phase of development are the following symptoms:

irritability in response to requests to perform tasks that are not pleasant but common to most people (for example: washing the dishes, going to the market or taking out the garbage) very slow pace of work and poor quality of its output offensive responses to useful advice from other people about ways to change jobs or seek a promotion, for example unfounded and malicious criticism of people in power.

The difficulty of prevention lies in the fact that the person generally believes that he is not to blame for anything. Here the exercise already described by us “review of choices” will help perfectly. A simple exercise of putting yourself in other people’s shoes to understand their feelings is also recommended. This therapy will stop the progress of procrastination and make the person more sensitive to others.

A person who does not try to control his anger runs the risk of developing borderline personality disorder. One of the typical manifestations that trouble is about to develop is a sudden and unwarranted change of heart. Let’s say today you believe that fried egg has a terrible effect on your stomach and you hate it, and the next day you happily prepare a fried egg to eat.

Of course, impulsiveness alone is not a threat. But, if you have a very strong temper, you should also pay attention to these details:

fickle friendly and romantic relationships; frequent pointless spending (going to buy a coffee maker and coming back with a television); driving recklessly, on the verge of being the cause of accidents; mood swings for no apparent reason and a feeling of chronic boredom.

An excellent prevention will be some training for personal development that work on the issue of self-control. A reward system will also be useful. For example, if you are going to buy the coffee maker, buy it (without taking half of the store with you) and, as a reward, at another time, treat yourself to something you need.

People who are prone to self-flagellation can be called ostriches: they hide their heads in a hole all the time, trying to hide from problems. In psychology, this is called avoidant personality disorder🇧🇷 In advanced cases, it can cause panic attacks, depression and sleep disorders.

Self-criticism in small doses is useful because it motivates us to improve, but in large amounts it is highly dangerous for the mental state. The situation is alarming if you observe the following:

a strong and instantaneous offense at criticism or disapproval; rejection of contact and communication with new people, reaching the point of absurdity, for example, giving up taking the elevator to avoid contact; exaggeration of the potential difficulties, physical dangers, or risks of performing common actions; self-repression in dealing with people for fear of saying the wrong thing.

An effective exercise in this case is the refutation of false predictions. It is important to write down negative assumptions about an action to be taken. For example: “if I go to an unknown store late at night, I will certainly be robbed” and then carry out that action and record the result. Then, when there are doubts and a negative premonition, it will be enough to open the notebook with the notes to make sure that nothing terrible has happened and, therefore, will not happen in the future.

We’re all a little paranoid, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But some people experience such paranoia that they waste energy on actions that, in general, are pure waste of time. For example, they create fake profiles on social networks, take their partner’s cell phone and may go so far as to hire a detective. People like this may be suffering from a problem called paranoid personality disorder. This dysfunction has the following symptoms:

irrational distrust of partner searching for ulterior motives in ordinary people’s actions (e.g. suspecting neighbor slamming door just to annoy you) tendency to blame everyone but self lack of sense of humor, inability to see funny things in simple everyday situations.

An excellent way to deal with chronic distrust is to make a list of people you know and put a “+” sign in front of their name every time they meet or exceed some expectation – for example, you feared that someone would forget your birthday in the company and she was the first to say congratulations. The next time a suspicion arises, it will be enough to see the amount of “+” signs, and the distrust will tend to disappear.

Dependence on loved ones is the hallmark of all mammals and, of course, of human beings as well. It’s perfectly normal to rely on others, but over-attachment is defined in psychology as a dependent personality disorder. A characteristic that occupies a true mental disorder is the difficulty or inability to make decisions without the approval of a person in authority. This dysfunction is also accompanied by the following symptoms:

being in agreement with others, even when it is known that they are wrong feeling uncomfortable in solitude and the desire to do anything to not be alone performing unpleasant or demeaning actions to oneself just to appear sympathetic in front of others obsessive and unsubstantiated thoughts that all the people around are traitors.

The best way to fight this disorder is by selecting the positive evidence of one’s attitudes. For example: “I am a good driver”, “I prepared an excellent report at work”, etc. Whenever the urge arises to ask for someone’s approval, you need to refer to the list: it will help build trust.

Excessive emotionality and sensitivity can be a symptom of histrionic personality disorder, which is commonly known by the name of hysteria. The desire to draw attention to yourself is natural, but there is a limit to this. A different feature of this dysfunction is a very emotional speech and, at the same time, lacking in details and reasoning – that is, not at all rational. For example, the question “What did your mother look like?” can be answered more or less like “she was very good…”.

Other signs of this dysfunction:

constant seeking support, approval, and praise from a person in authority inability to focus on one thing for a long time; superficial and rapidly changing emotions intolerance of procrastination, combined with the desire to constantly do something.

One of the ways to curb hysteria is to work with a stopwatch. It is necessary to set it for half an hour or an hour…