Personality disorder causes

Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]Associate Editor(s)-in-Chief: Ayesha Anwar, M.B.B.S[2]

Overview[edit | edit source]

Causative factors associated with PDs include genetic factors with mutations in genes involving dopamine and serotonin pathways such as DRD2, COMT, DTNBP1, DAAO, 5-HTTLPR, MAOA, DRD3,TPH1 and TPH2 and environmental factors like stresses, parental treatment, sexual abuse and substance use.

Causes[edit | edit source]

A study of almost 600 male college students, averaging almost 30 years of age and who were not drawn from a clinical sample, examined the relationship between childhood experiences of sexual and physical abuse and presently reported personality disorder symptoms. Childhood abuse histories were found to be definitively associated with greater levels of symptomatology. Severity of abuse was found to be statistically significant, but clinically negligible, in symptomatology variance spread over Cluster A, B and C scales.Miller and Lisak. Journal of Interpersonal Violence. June 1999

Child abuse and neglect consistently evidence themselves as antecedent risks to the development of personality disorders in adulthood. In this particular study, efforts were taken to match retrospective reports of abuse with a clinical population that had demonstrated psychopathology from childhood to adulthood who were later found to have experienced abuse and neglect. The sexually abused group demonstrated the most consistently elevated patterns of psychopathology. Officially verified physical abuse showed an extremely strong role in the development of antisocial and impulsive behavior. On the other hand, cases of abuse of the neglectful type that created childhood pathology were found to be subject to partial remission in adulthood. Cohen, Patricia, Brown, Jocelyn, Smailes, Elizabeth. "Child Abuse and Neglect and the Development of Mental Disorders in the General Population" Development and Psychopathology. 2001. Vol 13, No 4, pp981-999. ISSN 0954-5794

In 2005, psychologists Belinda Board and Katarina Fritzon at the University of Surrey, UK, interviewed and gave personality tests to high-level British executives and compared their profiles with those of criminal psychiatric patients at Broadmoor Hospital in the UK. They found that three out of eleven personality disorders were actually more common in managers than in the disturbed criminals:

• Histrionic personality disorder: including superficial charm, insincerity, egocentricity and manipulation
• Narcissistic personality disorder: including grandiosity, self-focused lack of empathy for others, exploitativeness and independence.

They described the business people as successful psychopaths and the criminals as unsuccessful psychopaths. ^[1]

Drugs[edit | edit source]

• Pergolide

References[edit | edit source]

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