Do you believe personality disorders are legitimate?

I think the diagnostic criteria for disorders on Axis II, Cluster B in particular are controversial and will undergo some serious revision in DSM V.

@pdworkin they’re certainly controversial, but do you personally believe that they are legitimate? that’s what i mean.

Not the way they are currently written. Too much overlap, and they are the product of too much compromise if you read the history of the way they were promulgated in IV. No one was really terribly happy with them.

The borderline and histrionic personality disorders have been over-applied to women with mood issues. In the past they were used as an excuse to abuse women. I think that these issues should be taken into consideration when discussing these “labels”. There are many underlying issues as to why several women get these labels and why they are particularly unhelpful (vs. how other disorders are treated). I think the labels themselves and they way in which they are unfairly applied are part of the cause of the stigma associated with them.

As long as it means that it’s not my fault that I’m a dick. . .cool.

@Blondesjon wow

I do believe that personality disorders exist, however the way that they are described and diagnosed currently leaves much to be desired. Too many characteristics of personality disorders overlap with other disorders for them to be diagnosed effectively.

The same issue is often brought up with regard to restless leg syndrome. If you haven’t ever felt it, it sound “fake” to many people. When I was having serious problems with a thyroid deficiency, my doctor said my issues were “women’s problems” or “all in my head”. These disorders do, indeed exist. It is because of the difficulty in diagnosis that many people can’t accept that.

I think that diagnoses for these disorders are a good way to identify a group of behaviors that are problematic. As diagnoses for mental disorders should be a way of having a common language as to what’s going on more than anything else, I think that these diagnoses can help people know what’s going on and what might help with the issues and behaviors for people diagnosed. They are legitimate diagnoses, but should be seen more as a classification than anything else.

@RedPowerLady In what way have they been “used as an excuse to abuse women?”

@Ivan . . .your mom said, “wow”.

I believe they exist. They might be misdiagnosed or misunderstood in general, and I will readily admit to not knowing how they are categorized.

I spent a lot of time over the past fifteen years or so wondering if my mom has some kind of problem, or behaves the way she does on purpose. One day, here on Fluther, I saw a link for histrionic personality disorder, clicked on it, and read a very accurate description of my mother. The only thing not mentioned is the lying, which my mom does a lot of, even if there is no discernible reason for it. She will never see anyone because she thinks she is perfectly normal. It has certainly affected her life, contributed to her divorce from my dad, her difficult relationship with everyone in her second husband’s family (including her husband), strained her relationship with her own family, given her problems with her past jobs, and probably other things I don’t even know about. She is extremely difficult to be around. Mortifying, even, especially in public. And I’m not even an easily-humiliated teenager anymore.

So yes, I think personality disorders are real. Like everything else, there are probably many variations from one individual to the next. If anyone figures out how to get a person to see that they have a problem and seek help for it, let me know!

@avvooooooo Well borderline and histronic personality disorders are commonly agreed upon to have developed from Hysteria. Hysteria was overdiagnosed in the past and once diagnosed women would be treated horribly. As you may know many of the women who were labeled as ‘hsyterics’ had simply medical issues, one predominant was a common STD, and others then just became overlabeled. Women were treated with an abundance of treatments that would scare us today. Ever seen “Changeling”, it is based on a true story, and the way Jolie was treated in the mental health center was not uncommon. It is a good movie that depicts how abuse against women with such labels was considered acceptable.

@avvooooooo to add to @RedPowerLady answer, in the workplace today, you will often hear men laugh, nudge, nudge “She’s just being OCD today” to downplay a woman who has disagreed with them.

@YARNLADY . . .don’t you mean pms?

“People” say a lot of stupid things. That’s not quite the same thing as contending that women have been abused by rogue therapists misusing diagnoses for Personality Disorders.

@RedPowerLady All people with mental disorders were treated horribly by today’s standards. All people with mental disorders were given treatments that we see as unsound today. It wasn’t just women diagnosed with hysteria or any other disorder, it was everyone diagnosed with a disorder that was or was not accurate.

@avvooooooo My point is that certain diagnoses were based on stereotypes, misinformation, and just general poor attitudes against the women and led to poor treatments vs. others. These are two that are very predominately known for that in the field of psychology. Especially when considering the historical context of them. You have already stated that you have knowledge in this field as such I would think you know the history of these disorders and how they have negatively contributed to the treatment of women. However lets just leave it at that we have different opinions as I do not care to debate with you, ever, because in the past it has led “downhill” and taken away from the question. Having said that please respond anyway you see fit but know that I will not be responding in turn.

Yes, I think personality disorders are legitimate. However, I do think the guidelines for diagnosing them are still unclear, and that many people have been wrongly diagnosed with them. Personality disorders are long-term (chronic) patterns of behaviors and relationships that interfere with a person’s life over many years. They aren’t specifically due to an imbalance of brain chemicals, although medications can sometimes help, but rather to engrained behavior patterns.

My son has several diagnoses, ranging from ADHD, through ODD and on to Early Onset Bipolar Disease. The results of these diseases and choices he makes have also gotten him the label of Borderline Personality Disorder at times, Narcissistic PD at times, and even Schizotypal PD. They do all overlap, though.

@RedPowerLady I do know a good bit about the field. Enough to know that while women were predominately diagnosed with these particular disorders and mistreated, a similar number of men were mistreated for other disorders. Many of which were also misdiagnosed based on the same or similar stereotypes and misinformation. Its not really accurate to point out mistreatment of women for particular disorders as if it wasn’t common across the board for both sexes and most disorders in the past.

Stereotypes and misdiagnoses run rampant through the history of mental health. They are not really more common for hysteria than for other disorders. Abuses aren’t really more common for hysteria than for other disorders. And there were pet diagnoses for most minority groups.

There was a mental illness called Drapetophobia which accounted for the behavior of certain African slaves who ran away from the plantation. This illness was preferentially treated by whipping. You could look it up.

@pdworkin Exactly. There are so many misdiagnoses and so many abuses that you can find them in almost any group.

Okay I can’t help myself so bravo for prompting me to reply again. First off this question is about borderline and histronics which is not all mental illness.

Second not all mental illnesses are overdiagnosed, not all are limited to certain populations, and not all carry the same level of stigma as these ones do. These two diagnoses fit all those categories. That is something to be concerned about. A huge reason why they fit those categories is because of how they were used historically. Often abused historically.

http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Hysteria/id/498937
You say all people were treated poorly back in the day. Which yes many people were. But were all people subject to sexual massage as a “treatment”? No. Just one example of abuse related to this label historically. And what about the “clitoridectomy”?

That does not mean that this didn’t/doesn’t happen in other circumstances. However it does happen overly so with some diagnoses. In fact I know many psychologists who take serious consideration when diagnosing someone with these disorders because of the stigma attached to them. They would rather give a different but similar diagnosis (because there is overlap and it can be done often without harming patient).

So I fail to see how mentioning that mental illness has a stigma attached to it as a whole is relevant to this particular discussion. Well that is true it by no means takes away from the overwhelming impact these particular labels have on the female gender. I also fail to see how a random applied to African slaves has anything to do with the argument.

You can google it yourself and find a ton of articles that discuss the heaviness of this particular stigma as it relates to this particular discussion.

http://www.mental-health-matters.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=535

http://www.borderlinepersonalitytoday.com/main/art35.htm

Furthermore ” For such reasons, and because its diagnosis had much to do with misogynist feelings on the part of male psychiatrists, nowadays hysteria is not generally accepted as a legitimate term for a mental disorder. The use of hysteria as a diagnostic label has declined in western countries almost to zero grade. Hysteria, for example, is no longer listed as a disease in the DSM IV; This is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition, published under the auspices of the American Psychiatric Association. In the seventeenth edition of the Merck Manual, hysteria no longer has a separate entry.

But hysteria and its adjective hysterical are still current and widespread in ordinary speech, and met in historical medical literature. The word is on the way out of legitimate medical vocabulary and that is a just victory for those want to purge medical terminology and practice of male chauvinist notions. Today most psychiatrists consider hysteria to be, in the current charming euphemism of the shrink trade, a legacy diagnosis. Translation: Hysteria has become through ignorant overuse an almost clinically meaningless, catch-all term, much like schizophrenia. ”

there, i’m done

@RedPowerLady Sure, clitoridectomy is comparable to experimental lobotomy, excessive shock therapy, and many of the treatments that were used incorrectly for other disorders. If you look at the broader picture, while the abuses were horrible, they were not uncommon for the day and age and they could be less than those for people with other disorders. Horrible in our eyes, but not remarkable in that day and age. Women were not singled out for abuses, nor were those for these disorder more remarkable than those for others. That was my point that you choose to leave instead of take.

Abuses, and diagnoses specific to minority groups, were not limited to women nor to these diagnoses. The point was made that there was one specific to African Americans where the treatment was also majorly abusive. It is indeed comparable to the point you’re trying to make.

I am well aware of the stigma. I am also aware that many times a diagnosis is used as a general classification of behaviors, as it commonly is for personality disorders. Hysteria is no longer a recognized diagnosis because there are more accurate ones that professionals can agree on which better describe the specific behaviors and issues common in the personalty disorders in this question. As I actually own, have studied, have read and have used the DSM-IV professionally, I am aware of the current information contained within it. If you do not use the information in it correctly or understand it, listing out the whole name and the publisher will not help you to prove a point.

Hysteria, in the current usage, does not refer to the same thing as the historical usage. It refers instead to out of control behavior, generally when someone is very upset. The current usage and the historical usage are entirely different things and should not be confused nor considered to be the same thing. A similar change of meaning is the term “gay” which no longer is widely considered to mean “happy.”

@avvooooooo Just to clarify I am aware hysteria is now used differently. I was making a point about the history of why it was taken out of the DSM. You say that women were not singled out for abuses but statistics seem to suggest otherwise. The fact that women were overwhelming diagnosed with a disorder that carried such horrible treatment suggests they were. You can read the data differently than I if you wish as is your right.

Your argument is that because all of mental illness has a stigma we should ignore the particularly heavy stigma attached to these two labels. And furthermore we should ignore their abusive historical context because there have been other labels with abuse associated with them.

My argument is that because they are so over-diagnosed and has such a horrible stigma attached to them (not to mention a horrible history) we should be cautious whenever this label is used. That does not take away from the stigma attached to other mental disorders. It does however apply to the OP’s question. I also disagree that all labels carry the same weight. I believe that this two in particular carry a heavier weight than many other contemporary labels.

@RedPowerLady Schizophrenia is probably the most highly stigmatized diagnosis in today’s society. Knowing that there are those that carry a much heavier weight as they are more than classifications of behaviors, it is impossible for me to agree with the idea that these diagnoses are among the worst things that people can have. Also, having worked in a mental health environment and seen how these diagnoses are used, I do not agree with your assessment of how they’re used in the mental health community.

Men were over-diagnosed with disorders that lead to lobotomies.

Having lived with a roommate with untreated (by her choice) Borderline PD, I firmly believe there is something very real about it.

Worst year of my life – changed me forever.

@avvooooooo Didn’t say it was the worst. Said it carries different weight, heavier than many, not all. I can agree that schizophrenia has a worse stigma in many circumstances.

We will have to agree to disagree (having worked in the mental health environment as well).

@supacase the years that i lived without treatment for borderline pd convinced me that there is something very real about it. worst years of my life — changed me forever.

there’s definitely an argument that the disorders are confused and even nonexistent. i just wanted to get peoples’ opinions.

@Supacase reading back on my response, it may seem like i was trying to retort with something nasty – don’t take it that way. hahaha. i was not offended by your comment.

@smack I do not doubt for a minute that it was hell for you. I didn’t mean to imply that it was worse for me. Life with her was terrible and did change me forever, but at least I was eventually able to get away. Whatever residual feelings I have about that time in my life, I have always felt sad that she is forced to live with this forever. I know it makes her even more miserable than it made me.

No worries – I didn’t take it that way. I actually looked at my answer and thought it was kind of insensitive.