Personality Information | Authentic Connection

Personality Concerns

What is it?

Personality concerns and disorders are mental health conditions characterized by rigid, inflexible, and long-lasting patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving that deviate from cultural expectations, causing significant distress or impairment. These patterns are typically pervasive across various situations, affecting relationships, self-image, and daily functioning.

Symptoms of Personality Concerns

According to the Mayo Clinic, people with personality concerns often have a hard time understanding emotions and tolerating distress and can act impulsively. These patterns makes it hard for them to relate to others, causing serious issues, and affecting their family life, social activities, work and school performance, and overall quality of life. Personality concerns often go unknown and undiagnosed due to individuals believing their behaviors and beliefs are natural or tend to overly blame others for their challenges. Personality concerns have a range of symptoms based on different types or clusters, but common symptoms include:

Emotional Dysregulation: Extreme mood swings, intense anger, and chronic feelings of emptiness.
Impulsivity and Risky Behavior: Engaging in dangerous, impulsive, or irresponsible acts (e.g., reckless driving, substance abuse, gambling, impulsive spending).
Fear of Abandonment: Intense, often irrational fear of being abandoned, leading to desperate efforts to avoid it.
Distorted Thinking/Paranoia: A persistent, inflexible, and often paranoid or "black-and-white" view of the world and others.
Problems with Empathy: Difficulty acknowledging or understanding the feelings and needs of others.
Unstable Relationships: Relationships are often intense, tumultuous, and unstable, frequently swinging between extreme admiration and devaluation.
Distorted Self-Image: A highly unstable sense of self, which can lead to rapid changes in goals, values, and career aspirations

Treatment

Treatment for personality issues primarily involves long-term therapy, such as Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Radically Open Dialectical Behavior Therapy (RO DBT), or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), which aims to manage intense emotions, reduce impulsive behaviors, and improve interpersonal relationships. Personality concerns may also require psychological testing to determine severity and to confirm their presence.

While no specific medications are approved to treat personality disorders themselves, psychiatrists may prescribe medications to address co-occurring conditions like anxiety, depression, or impulsivity.

Successful treatment often requires consistent participation over several months or years, alongside building a supportive network and cultivating healthy lifestyle habits.

Authentic Connection is proud to offer clarity and determination of personality concerns via psychological testing. Dr. Sherd and Susan are able to provide testing services. Kylene is our expert therapist who has extensive experience to assist with managing personality issues you may be struggling with.