Personality Disorders

Personality Disorders are pervasive problems in thinking, feeling, and behavior that make it difficult for an individual to master life challenges and derive satisfaction from a broad range of everyday situations. Impairment in judgement or decision-making, impulsivity, as well as rigidly held beliefs interfere with learning and integration of feedback, which would enable a person to improve coping skills and behave more adaptively in interpersonal relationships and circumstances.

Personality Disorders (PDs) — such as Borderline PD, Narcissistic PD, and Histrionic PD — can be seen on a spectrum, ranging from mild to severe. Distortions in perception or interpretation are based on maladaptive beliefs that are deeply rooted and tend to be outside of the person’s awareness. At one time, usually in early childhood, certain perceptions, interpretations, and coping strategies were adaptive, and the best the person could do at the time, given the circumstances and the person’s psychological state or development. These beliefs, feelings and behaviors then perpetuate and become more elaborate over the course of the person’s life, and continue to persist even when they become maladaptive later on, after circumstances have changed. Without awareness, there can be no challenge to these beliefs, and thus they continue to be strengthened by ongoing experiences that are being filtered through the disorted lens of perception. The first step toward change is identification of the problem or distortion. Next comes developing the understanding of the problem or distortion through further examination or exploration. Following this, one can then work toward modifying beliefs to be more accurate and realistic, and also make different behavioral choices that are more adaptive, leading to symptom relief and emotional improvement.

Help begins with a phone call.

CTA is a network of experienced therapists across the New York metro area. We strive to match you with the right therapist for you, to help you to effectively manage and resolve issues related to long-standing problems in thinking, feeling and behavior. To inquire about an appointment, please call us at (212) 258-2577.

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