Personality Disorders and Deviant Behavior

Personality Disorders and Deviant Behavior

People who suffer from personality disorders often display deviant behavior. The mental illness itself is not deviant. They typically have problems with social skills, mood swings, emotional states, and are often unable to maintain healthy, stable relationships. Many sufferers do not possess the capability to have genuine emotions, including empathy for others. A personality disorder is the basis of many circumstances of maladaptive behavior including substance abuse, self-harm, suicide, and criminality.

There are ten different personality disorders, each having specific symptoms, but all of them share certain characteristics. The first of these characteristics is that an individual who has a personality disorder noticeably deviates from the individual’s culture’s expectation of that person. The second characteristic is that the sufferer is unable to function normally in social, occupational, and other important areas due to the disorder. The last common characteristic is that the origins of the disorder can be traced to adolescence or early adulthood and is never the result of another mental illness or medical condition.

A person having one or more of the ten disorders is often times a participant in deviant behavior of some sort. The first of the personality disorders is paranoid personality disorder. A paranoid personality has a basic distrust of others, including the belief that others are trying to exploit, harm, or deceive him or her. This suspicion is always without basis. Because of this distrust, one is unable to confide in and trust others and has often has suspicions of a spouse. The paranoid personality disorder is unable to forgive others of attacks (...

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...sure activities. These traits interfere with task completion because his or her high standards can never be met. The obsessive-compulsive personality disorder is totally inflexible about matters of morality, ethics, or values. This cannot be accounted for by his or her cultural or religious identification. The associated deviant features of an obsessive-compulsive personality disorder are often depression and sexual dysfunction, which may include a total lack of sexual desire. As illustrated in this paper, all people who suffer from personality disorders display some form of deviant schizoid behavior. People often have more than one personality disorder. Because of the fact that the majority of deviants have personality disorders, when dealing with a deviant, it is important to determine the disorder he or she has. This way, the disorder can be managed effectively.