Are Personality Disorders Mental Illness?

Are personality disorders mental illness? A Personality disorder is a pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates from the expectations of a person’s culture.

Although these patterns of behavior are considered disorders in the diagnostic and statistical manual, we don’t think of them as illnesses in the same way we think of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression or even ADHD. With these illnesses we see disruptions in brain chemistry that are responsible for these illnesses. But the personality disorders are patterns of thinking and behavior that just develop with you. We all have characteristics of some of these personality disorders. We call it having certain personality features or traits. But if you have several of the traits of a particular disorder such that it causes dysfunction in all of these areas of your life, then it would be considered the disorder. So a person can have features of narcissism without having the full-blown narcissistic personality disorder.

In this video I discuss the 10 personality types and how they are clustered into groups based on characteristics they share. The 10 personality types are:
Cluster A (odd or eccentric):
Paranoid personality disorder, Schizoid personality disorder, Schizotypal personality disorder

Cluster B (dramatic or erratic):
Antisocial personality disorder, Borderline personality disorder, Histrionic personality disorder, Narcissistic personality disorder

Cluster C (anxious):
Avoidant personality disorder, Dependent personality disorder, Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder

Disclaimer: All of the information on this channel is for educational purposes and not intended to be specific/personal medical advice from me to you. Watching the videos or getting answers to comments/question, does not establish a doctor-patient relationship. If you have your own doctor, perhaps these videos can help prepare you for your discussion with your doctor.

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