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[Thread] Study of personality disorders and law

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    #2
    Kadongy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 732 ✭✭✭Kadongy


    My understanding:

    Personality disorders are disorders of the personality itself. They are generally difficult to impossible to treat or cure, and often permanent. If they are caused by external factors, it is usually those exposed to in early childhood while the basic personality is being formed. They usually are not directly caused by chemical imbalances in the person. They are a part of who the person is, rather than a condition they are experiencing.

    They effect how a person perceives and relates to situations and people - including themselves.

    They are often but not always considered a type of mental illness.


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    #3
    TrollHammaren
    Registered Users Posts: 651 ✭✭✭TrollHammaren


    From the Oxford Dictionary of Psychology (Colmon, 2006):

    Mental Disorder:

    "According to DSM-IV, a psychological syndrome associated with distress, impairment of an important area or areas of functioning, or significantly increased risk of death, disability, or loss of freedom, occurring not merely as a predictable response to a disturbing life event such as bereavement but assumed to be a manifestation of psychological or biological dysfunction. According to the ICD-10, a mental disorder is a clinically recognizable collection of symptoms or behaviour associated in most cases with distress or interference with personal functions. A deviant pattern of behavior, whether political, religious, or sexual, or a conflict between an individual and society, is not a mental disorder unless it is symptomatic of disfunction in the individual."

    Personality Disorders:

    "A category of mental disorders, with onset no later than early childhood, characterized by pervasive, inflexible, and enduring patterns of cognition, affect, interpersonal behaviour, or impulse control that deviate markedly from culturally shared expectations and lead to significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning."

    So, considering that we can interpret a personality disorder as a category of mental disorder associated with behaviour that is considered significantly deviant in society, and that a mental disorder is a social, cognitive, or mentally functional impairment that is associated with a psychological/biological dysfunction, you could say that they both must be organic or semi-organic social and mental impairments.

    In other words, a mental disorder is a behavioural/cognitive impairment associated with a brain dysfunction. A personality disorder is a subcategory of this, referring specifically to social/cultural impairments. They cannot be considered "impairments" or "disorders" unless the behaviour is associated with an underlying brain dysfunction.

    Chances are, though, the DSM-V will change this, as they seem to be (hopefully) moving away from socially/culturally-ascribed subjective notions. We should also note that Oxford Dictionary of Psychology isn't the authority on these concepts, and that it seems to base its definitions on the far-from-perfect ICD-10 and DSM-IV.


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