Assessment for weight loss surgery
Jenny Radcliffe in Cut Down to Size, 2013
A significant number of people who seek weight loss surgery have had emotional difficulties at some point in their life, mainly problems with depression or anxiety.2 Somewhere between 50–85 per cent of people seeking weight loss surgery will have had a diagnosis of depression at some point in their life,3 40 per cent have a current mental health problem, most commonly depression and anxiety4 and a third have more than one psychiatric diagnosis.5 As many as a quarter of weight loss surgery patients have a diagnosis of personality disorder.6 Personality disorders are long-standing and pronounced problems in behaviour and thinking that affect the individual's emotional experience, the way they think about the world, and their relationships with other people. People with personality disorders often have problems with impulse control so are at risk of self-harming behaviours and may struggle to take adequate care of their health and dietary needs after surgery.
The biological bases of personality
Philip N. Murphy in The Routledge International Handbook of Psychobiology, 2018
Personality is a well-established concept, most commonly characterised as an individual difference that is stable across time and contexts. The current chapter introduces major models of personality such as the five-factor model and highlights the manner in which researchers have sought to identify the biological architecture underlying the most frequently studied personality traits. The chapter also provides an overview of personality disorders and biological factors influencing the development of these disorders. Though much of the research in this area is atheoretical, the chapter highlights the manner in which evolutionary pressures have influenced the development of personality and personality disorders. Finally, the chapter outlines the ways in which personality impacts on biology in relation to physical and mental health.
Chapter 12 Overview
Emily Blount, Helen Kirby-Blount, Liz Moulton in The Complete CSA Casebook, 2017
Personality disorders can be quite difficult to identify but be suspicious in patients with repeating patterns of behaviour, such as self-harm, emotional instability, criminal activity, problems maintaining relationships or difficulties functioning in day to day life (unable to keeps jobs etc.). Personality disorders are thought to develop due to a combination of genetic factors and ‘nurture’ factors (early life experiences, abuse). Our personalities have normally formed between our mid-teens to early 20s. Although our personalities cannot be changed (hence personality disorders are often labelled untreatable), intervention can help patients cope with their difficulties and enable them to function better and have a more stable and fulfilling life. NICE recommends a structured approach to assessment and management. Psychotherapy can be effective and drug therapy may help in some cases (e.g. antidepressants to treat depressive symptoms). Antipsychotics or sedatives can be used for short-term crisis management but are not advised long term.1,2,3
Risk Factors for Stalking Recidivism in a Dutch Community Forensic Mental Health Sample
Published in International Journal of Forensic Mental Health, 2020
Troy E. McEwan, Lianne Harder, Cleo Brandt, Vivienne de Vogel
Sixteen stalkers (all male) were violent during the stalking episode (23.5%), in 15 cases assaulting the primary target of the stalking. In three cases the stalker also assaulted a secondary victim (e.g., the parent or child of the primary victim) and in one case the only victim of violence was a professional who was assisting the primary victim. The severity of violence ranged from slapping and pushing to assaulting the victim with weapons (e.g., in one case the victim was stabbed by the stalker, in another the stalker attempted to run the victim’s car off the road). Table 1 provides additional information about the index stalking episodes, while information about the prior offending and mental health characteristics of participants at the time of assessment is shown in Table 2. Personality disorder was among the most common diagnoses recorded, with Not Otherwise Specified (NOS) being the most common single category (16 cases, or 59.26% of all personality disorder diagnoses). In the five cases where the traits contributing to NOS diagnoses were recorded, antisocial, narcissistic, borderline, histrionic, and/or obsessive-compulsive traits were present. Specific personality disorders were diagnosed in relatively few cases (borderline = 4; antisocial = 3; narcissistic = 2; avoidant and dependent = 1 each). Substance use disorders were common in the sample, with abuse diagnosed in 10 cases, dependence in 11, and withdrawal in 9. Alcohol or polysubstance use were most common substances across all substance use diagnosis types.
Expanding the clinical and genetic spectrum of SQSTM1-related disorders in family with personality disorder and frontotemporal dementia
Published in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Frontotemporal Degeneration, 2021
Sara Llamas-Velasco, Ana Arteche-López, Antonio Méndez-Guerrero, Verónica Puertas Martín, Juan Francisco Quesada Espinosa, Jose Miguel Lezana Rosales, Marta González-Sánchez, Victor Antonio Blanco-Palmero, Carmen Palma Milla, Alejandro Herrero-San Martín, Daniel Borrego-Hernández, Alberto García-Redondo, David Andrés Pérez-Martínez, Alberto Villarejo-Galende
Our patient showed personality disorder cluster A since youth, and his father and two sons also had a personality disorder. Cognitive evaluation, brain MRI, and brain FDG-PET were performed on both sons without evidence of relevant findings during the study. In the literature, only one patient of the 57 FTLD collected subjects had a previous history of psychiatric disorder described as endogenous depression, schizophrenia, and schizoaffective disorder. The age at onset of her bvFTD was unknown, and she had a father and brother diagnosed with schizophrenia. She was heterozygous for losing the function p.W321* variant in the SQSTM1 gene, but information on the segregation analysis was unavailable (29). The development of personality disorders is believed to be caused by the contribution and interaction between genetic and environmental factors. A cluster in several families and different gene polymorphisms have been suggested as the associated genetic component (30). No isolated pathogenic gene variant has been reported to date. Parentaly provided reared environment could have impacted offspring behaviors being the finding of this genetic variant incidental. However, a recent systematic review showed that parental genes could have an underlying influence of this factor, as indirect genetic nurturing effect, proposing a gene-enviroment correlation (31).
Psychometric Properties of the Spanish Short Version of the Inventory of Personality Organization (IPO-18) in a Nonclinical Sample
Published in Journal of Personality Assessment, 2021
Salvatore Cosentino, Eulàlia Arias-Pujol, Carles Pérez-Testor
Studies of personality disorders have increased in recent years, and there has been a concomitant increase in the number of assessment tools designed to aid in the detection and characterization of personality disorders, most of which are diagnosed using the DSM symptom descriptions for the different types of personality disorders. For this reason, the most common approach to a DSM-related assessment tool is descriptive and non-theoretical by nature (Lenzenweger et al., 2001). After the publication of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.; DSM-5; American Psychiatric Association, 2013), the topic of personality disorder diagnosis has attracted the attention of many clinicians and researchers. Most dimensional models and alternative approaches for the classification and diagnosis of personality disorders summarize a large number of variables into smaller clusters, having further developed related assessment methodologies. The DSM-5 conceptualization of personality functioning seems to follow Kernberg’s psychodynamic model (Kernberg, 1984; Kernberg & Caligor, 2005), a theory-guided model discussed by the author since the mid-60s. The diagnostic and theoretical framework used by Kernberg (1984, 1996) suggests that personality disorders evolve from a confluence of factors, which include both neurobiological factors (e.g., temperament, aggressiveness) and environmental factors (e.g., trauma, neglect) (Lenzenweger et al., 2001; Kernerg & Caligor, 2005).
Related Knowledge Centers
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
- Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
- Inhibitory Control
- International Classification of Diseases
- Personality
- Psychotherapy
- Quality of Life
- Social Norm
- Mental Disorder
- Maladaptation
- International Classification of Diseases
- Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
- Quality of Life