this is Megan Mitchell with agents of change Social Work test prep and I'm here today to present to you a social work short on personality disorders this is one of my favorite topics to discuss and to present on I just find it absolutely fascinating I think back to my master's program when I took a course on abnormal psych and I really enjoy learning more about this because I think that personality disorders can be quite complex and I do want to preface this lesson by saying there's going to be an overview of what personality disorders are we'll break down the different personality disorders and then I'll give an example of a either fictional character or someone um from history that may have been diagnosed with this disorder because of that I want to preface this by saying the examples that are given are only for educational purposes it is not a clinical diagnosis it's really just to help you put a an example to each one so on the test day you'll be able to access the information so that's kind of my disclaimer for this this is not a clinical diagnosis of the examples given it's more for education purposes so let's go ahead and jump in What are personality disorders so a personality disorder is a type of mental disorder in which you have a rigid and unhealthy pattern of thinking functioning and behaving important to note here that often those people that are diagnosed with personality disorders will have trouble relating to either situations or people and in some cases they will have difficulty relating to reality this causes a significant disruption in at least one area of life that might be relationships interpersonal relationships social activities or work or employment settings so those are the important things that you want to note when learning about personality disorders so personality disorders how would we diagnose this when would we diagnose this they're typically diagnosed in people around age 18 years of age and older and why is this why is it not typically diagnosed younger than this that's because our personalities are still developing right you have to think that of brain science and how our brain forms and how it develops personality is something that is changing and flexible and malleable up until around adulthood long-term patterns of sympt symptoms need to be present so um that's what makes personality disorders different from other diagnoses personality is something that doesn't change much over time so when you're looking at a vignette or you're answering a question for test purposes you want to make sure if you're diagnosing a personality disorder it's a long-term pattern of symptoms and often times those symptoms have become part of the person because if you think personality is um kind of more ingrained than other types of symptomology we might see so what you need to know there are three clusters of personality disorders there's cluster a which is usually referred to as Adin entric personality disorders there's cluster B which is dramatic and erratic personality disorders and then there's cluster C anxious and fearful personality disorders it will be important that you're able to group each personality disorder by their cluster because you're going to see they have some similarities within each cluster and that's why they're grouped this way and once again I am just commenting that the examples that you're going to see throughout are for educational purposes only they're not based on clinical assessment let's break this down very quickly cluster a what is included in cluster a there's p paranoid personality disorder schizoid personality disorder and schizotypal personality disorder that's cluster a ad and entric cluster B what are grouped into this category antisocial personality disorder narcissistic personality disorder borderline personality disorder and histrionic personality disorder and these all F under cluster B dramatic and and erratic Behavior the last cluster is cluster C and the three personality disorders that fall under this cluster are avoidant personality disorder dependent personality disorder and obsessive compulsive personality disorder that's cluster C anxious and fearful so let's jump into our cluster a disorders the first is paranoid personality disorder what are some symptoms you might see or patterns of behavior you would see with someone diagnosed with paranoid personality disorder distrust and suspicion of others and their motives always feeling like someone might be out to get them or that others are out to harm you I'm very very suspicious of this suspicion of the Loyalty or trustworthiness of others this as you could see would play out would probably show up as difficulty in interpersonal relationships because they always feel that they can't trust people or that they are paranoid that that person is out to get them or harm them in some way people with this this personality disorder they may be reluctant to give information or share information because they might be fearful that it will be used against them they might assume worst intent because they're feeling that things that are said are NE negative or harmful or might be been manipulated in a way that will be burdensome to them they might hold grudges and then a key thing here is unjustified recurrent suspicion that the spouse or sexual partner is Unfaithful and that is particularly for um Partners but you have to think here with paranoid a lot of these suspicions and these thoughts are not justified an example of someone from history it is said that Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin may have displayed some symptoms of paranoid personality disorder and that is um kind of behind why they they turned into the leaders that they did in some of the policies that they um implemented on a national level so that is paranoid personnality disorder the next one in cluster a is skito typo personality disorder this is remember this is under odd and Ecentric so you hear people with this personality disorder might dress in a very peculiar or odd way they might have odd thinking odd belief systems their emotions might appear flat or inappropriate that they do not match up with the situation someone with this personality disorder might lack close interpersonal relationship sh because they're anxious in Social settings they do not want to be part of social settings or they have trouble relating in Social settings they might have paranormal or superstitious beliefs that are sometimes not grounded in reality or grounded in fact here you might see magical thinking where your thoughts cause certain events to occur this is very common with children very young children but with this personality disorder people um that have some of the symptomology they might believe that they have caused certain events to happen a certain way and then they might believe that certain casual incidences or events have hidden messages that are only meant for them so they are reading into situations and reading into situations that they feel have secret or um alterior alterior messaging an example here that I like to give is Willie Wonka and if you think about even just the way that Wily Wonka dresses it's very odd and as Willy Wonka is going through the the movie and going through the Chocolate Factory and all those different things there are very many instances of that magical thinking that flat effect so um if you just want to look up a quick YouTube clip of Willy Wonka you might be able to point out some of these characteristics our last personality disorder in cluster a is skitso so schizoid is um a little bit different than the other two the people who have this personality disorder often lack interest in Social or personal relationships and prefer to be alone this even could be with family members they are not interested in engaging with others um limited range of emotional expression so they might appear flat affect or disengaged they often have an inability to take pleasure in most activities they're usually very isolated they have difficulty picking up on normal social cues they might appear very cold indifferent disconnected flat um and they might have little or no sexual desires so they really do have the preference to not engage and to just be by themselves um sometimes people with schizoid personality disorder live in remote places of the country or they live in places that they will have limited contact with other people and the example here is Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants Squidward always had um difficulty in social situations did not want to be in social situations appeared to be very cold very um disengaged and indifferent to what is going on so that is an example for skitso personality disorder we're moving on to our next cluster which is cluster B and this is often the erratic and dramatic personality disorders the first one we're going to cover here is antisocial personality disorder what is going on here persistent lying stealing and conning of others so a lot of time people with antisocial personality disorder have difficulties with the law they might be engaging in illegal activities violating the rights of others repeatedly because there seems to be no regard for how their actions affect others their behavior might be aggressive it can become violent and then what's key here this I do want you to pick up on here for antisocial lack of remorse so when something happens they do not have any empathy or remorse for the action that they did that caused harm to someone they might be manipulative and you charm to exploit others or harm others or con others and then sometimes conduct disorder is a precursor to this order disorder so someone that had antisocial personality disorder may have earlier in life had symptoms of conduct disorder and here this is I was looking up some statistics antisocial personality disorder is very rare um but these are people that might have some of those so sociopathic tendencies so and the example here is the Joker from Batman um very much in line with many of these things no regard No Remorse engaging in harmful um or dangerous at times acts against other people the next is narcissistic personality disorder and in this cluster narcissistic personality disorder some of the symptoms that you might see including include a person having an inflated sense of entitlement they might need constant and excessive admiration from others or they might seek that within themselves so they might be constantly reassuring or talking or admiring themselves they have this feeling of superiority that they are better than others they inflate themselves and seem to make everything about them focused on their accomplishments and their successes there's a big exaggeration here um so say there is an achievement or they have a talent if you are speaking with someone that has narcissistic personality disorder they might exaggerate that that they are the greatest in that area or they are the expert in that area even if there's Not facts to back that up they are obsessed with s success and status as it relates to themselves and being held in that high regard they need to be recognized so like I said they will always have that self-inflation they might make the conversation come Circle back to them they need to coning be praise they're inflating their sense of self their accomplishments and they have a very difficult time with interpersonal relationships because they don't see the point of view or read the feelings of others and that's usually because they hijack the conversations or they're not able to have a two-way relationship with others because they are so centered on themsel an example here one of my favorite shows is Walter White from Breaking Bad and I think that you start to see some of these characteristics of narcissistic personality disorder become more pronounced throughout this show as he gets more and more involved the next personality disorder is borderline personality disorder what are some behaviors here the person might be impul pulive they might be engaging in Risky Behavior such as having unsafe sex gambling binge eating excessive spending there's a variety of different behaviors here that you might see with borderline personality disorder instability I will say is very big with borderline so there is often an unstable sense of self um and very fragile so that people here might be very sensitive and often times their interpersonal relationships are very intense they might seem very all or nothing because there's up and down moods people with borderline have um higher risk of suicidal Behavior or threats of self harm and self-injury um kind of to go with those up and down moods there's an intense fear of being alone or being abandoned but then also at the same time that they might feel feelings of emptiness or l less and then there's also intense anger and stress so here you see a lot of ups and downs you see a lot of swings and the relationships are very very compromised in people with borderline personality disorders an example here is Rachel Bunch from the show crazy exgirlfriend if you're not familiar with any of these examples you can always just pop the names into YouTube or into Google and see what comes up in a quick search the last personality disorder in cluster B is histrionic personality disorder and in this personality disorder those who have been diagnosed often are seeking attention and and that's kind of a constant Behavior excessively emotional dramatic or sexual provocative to gain attention often times with histrionic people appear to be putting on some sort of act because the behavior is very exaggerated so there might be very dramatic Behavior where the person's speaking dramatically they might have strong opinions but few facts or details to back them up um they are very easily influenced by others they have emotions that cycle quickly but they're very shallow so they don't go very deep into any emotions which would cause significant problems with interpersonal relationships very concerned with physical appearance sometimes it is sexually provocative so the attention might be drawn to them in sexual ways and they often have unrealistic ideas of what their relationships with others are and they think they are closer with people than they really are so here it's very dramatic and it seems like sometimes people are putting on an act an example here is Gina George from Mean Girls you have to think here she was kind of the um the the ring leader who was always wanting attention very dramatic very at times um having strong opinions that really are not factual based and very concerned with physical appearance I'm thinking how in most of the movie She's concerned with her status and her physical appearance moving on to Cluster C we have avoidant personality disorder this is exactly what it sounds like someone that is avoiding some parts of relationships so here avoidant personality disorder sensitive to criticism or rejection so they avoid relationships because they do not want to experience this hurt from the relationship so they are going to avoid the relationships alt together a voidance of work activities that require interpersonal contact feeling that they are unattractive they're inferior they're inadequate so very very hard on themselves and how they will relate to other people they may be socially inhibited they might be timid they might not present with a strong personality they might isolate themselves or avoid new activities out of fear of meeting other people right because they do not want to be criticized they don't want to be rejected this might appear as extreme shyness in social situations or in personal relationships because there is that fear of putting yourself out there and what might happen if you do fear of disapproval embarrassing yourself or being ridiculed by those around you and the big thing here with avoidant personality disorder is they often want to have relationships with others but they're too anxious about engaging and too worried about what might happen if they do engage right thinking about that criticism thinking about that rejection the example here is Charlie Brown very anxious could be very shy in situations not wanting to engage and always wanting to um always wanting to kind of be on his own because he's worried about feeling inferior or feeling less than or being criticized the next one is dependent personality to disorder and this is sounds like what it's named after dependency on others feeling that you need to be taken care of so here there's very little sense of Independence so people with dependent personality disorders might look or appear very clingy right kind of latching on to relationships finding worth in relationships with others lacking self-confidence low self-esteem need reassurance from others to make even small decisions so not being able to independently make those decisions on their own right asking others what should I do and taking their opinion and making decisions based off of others opinions does very conflict averse with dependent personality disorder difficulty disagreeing with others they don't want to be disapproved so they kind of will go long with what others are saying to avoid the conflict people in dependent person with dependent personality disorders may find themselves in poor relationships or situations where they're being treated poorly or even abusive relationships um because they are so dependent on the other person and they're fearful of being on their own and these are people that often times are in new relationships even when a close or Intense or deep relationship has ended out of fear of being on their own so an example here is Cinderella obviously everyone knows the story of Cinderella um um lacking that self-confidence clingy Behavior to others trying to fall in love our last one we're going to discuss is obsessive compulsive personality disorder this is not the same as obsessive compulsive disorder this is obsessive compulsive personality disorder different so I want that to be clear some similarities and some overlap but they are different classifications someone with o CPD might be obsessed with orderliness and rules and because of this they are very inflexible they have very black and white thinking around ways that things should be extreme perfectionism is a tendency with people with ocpd which can cause a severe dysfunction or distress when Perfections not achieved as we know no one's perfect nothing can ever be perfect so they often do not follow through on projects because they want to to be perfect and they will never achieve that they like to be in control of people tasks situations and they do not like to delegate or work collaboratively because they really need that order in that control this would obviously cause some difficulties in interpersonal relationships so they might mean be mean they are neglecting their friends or not doing activities that they find enjoyable because they're obsessed with work and they're obsessed with productivity doing doing doing they often are rigid and stubborn we talked about that inflexible thinking they might be inflexible about morality ethics or values not seeing not able to see other people's perspectives and just really getting stuck in their thinking and um they might be very H want to have control over many things in their life so decisioning about budgeting spending money a variety of different things an example here it is said that Steve Jobs has some of the characteristics of obsessive compulsive personality disorder that might be why he found so much success because he was really really focused on success and work and um obsessing over the small details that was our overview of personality disorders if you have um other examples that will help the information stick I encourage you to come up with your own examples or use the ones that were given it will be important that you're able to identify the personality disorders as well as characterize them into their different clusters cluster a cluster B and cluster C so if you are someone that is struggling with this topic maybe you can write some information on flashcards you could sort them into their different clusters and you could come up with some examples yourself if you are looking for more aswb study content you can always check out our paid materials we have materials for everyone our paid program it can be found on agents of change prep.com if you need to contact me here is my contact info we are always here to answer your questions and to help and as always I want to remind you that you got this it is a hard test but it is doable thank you for tuning in and make sure to subscribe to my channel if you find this content helpful best of luck thank you for tuning in