Articles written by Sam Vaknin
All 45 articles written by Sam Vaknin
Victim Reactions: Victims react in different ways to loved ones with personality disorders
Category: Personality Disorders
Malignant optimists see signs of hope in every fluctuation, read meanings and patterns into every random occurrence, utterance, or slip. more...
Empathy: Empathy and Personality Disorders
Category: Personality Disorders
Narcissists and psychopaths lack empathy. It is safe to say that the same applies to patients with other personality disorders, notably the Schizoid, Paranoid, Borderline more...
Misdiagnosing Anxiety: Anxiety Disorder are often misdiagnosed as a Personality Disorders
Category: Personality Disorders
Patients with personality disorders are often anxious. Narcissists, for instance, are preoccupied with the need to secure social approval or attention (Narcissistic Suppl more...
Misdiagnosing Bipolar: The Bipolar Disorder is often misdiagnosed as a Personality Disorder
Category: Personality Disorders
The Bipolar Disorder got its name because the mania is followed by - usually protracted - depressive attacks. A similar pattern of mood shifts and dysphorias occurs in ma more...
Insane Narcissist: Is the Narcissist Legally Insane?
Category: Personality Disorders
The narcissist suffers from uncontrollable rage and grandiose fantasies. Most narcissists are also mildly obsessive-compulsive. Yet, all narcissists should be held accoun more...
Sexual Behavior: Sex and Personality Disorders
Category: Personality Disorders
The sexuality of patients with personality disorders is thwarted and stunted. more...
Narcissism Therapy: Narcissists compete with their therapists in therapy
Category: Personality Disorders
The narcissist sends a message to his psychotherapist: there is nothing you can teach me, I am as intelligent as you are. more...
Oppositional Disorder: Oppositional Defiant Disorder - real or social control tool?
Category: Personality Disorders
Let us hope that the "scholars" of the DSM V Committee have the good sense to remove this blatant tool of social control from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. more...
Conduct Disorder: Children and Adolescent Psychopaths
Category: Personality Disorders
Many underage muggers, extortionists, purse-snatchers, rapists, robbers, shoplifters, burglars, arsonists, vandals, and animal torturers have Conduct Disorder. more...
Eclectic Psychotherapy: Treatment tailored to the patient
Category: Personality Disorders
Mental health practitioners freely borrow tools and techniques from a myriad therapeutic systems. more...
Negativistic Personality: Passive-Aggressive Disorder
Category: Personality Disorders
Some people are perennial pessimists and have "negative energy" and negativistic attitudes. more...
Masochistic Personality: The Flip-side of Sadism
Category: Personality Disorders
The masochist has been taught from an early age to hate herself and consider herself unworthy of love and worthless as a person. more...
NOS Personality: Disorders without Borders
Category: Personality Disorders
The NOS diagnosis is a laundry list of all personality-related dysfunctions, signs, symptoms, and complaints that do not fit a specific personality disorder. more...
Schizotypal Personality: Eccentricity and Other Vices
Category: Personality Disorders
Do you believe in UFOs and alien abductions? You may be suffering from the Schizotypal Personality Disorder. more...
Dependent Personality: Abandonment Anxiety
Category: Personality Disorders
Dependents never disagree with meaningful others or criticizes them. They are afraid to lose their support and emotional nurturance. more...
Avoidant Personality: Social Phobia and Shyness
Category: Personality Disorders
People suffering from the Avoidant Personality Disorder feel inadequate, unworthy, inferior, and lacking in self-confidence. more...
Borderline Personality: The Labile Pendulum
Category: Personality Disorders
The main dynamic in the Borderline Personality Disorder is abandonment anxiety. more...
The Psychopath Antisocial: Devoid of Empathy
Category: Personality Disorders
The psychopath has antisocial traits coupled with and enhanced by callousness, ruthlessness, extreme lack of empathy, deficient impulse control, deceitfulness, more...
NPD Clinical Features: Addicted to Attention
Category: Personality Disorders
Perhaps the most immediately evident trait of patients with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is their vulnerability to criticism and disagreement. more...
Npd Diagnostic Criteria: Who is a Narcissist
Category: Personality Disorders
The Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is not a new psychological construct. In previous centuries it was called "egotism" or "megalomania". It is an extreme form of more...
Common PD Features: Disordered Personalities
Category: Personality Disorders
Most personality disorders share a set of symptoms (as reported by the patient) and signs (as observed by the mental health practitioner). more...
Diagnosing Disorders: Telling Them Apart
Category: Personality Disorders
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) describes 12 ideal "prototypes" of personality disorders. It provides lists of seven to nine personality traits per each disor more...
Eating Disorders and Personality: Eating Disorders are often misdiagnosed as Personality Disorders
Category: Personality Disorders
A whopping 40% of Anorexia Nervosa/Bulimia Nervosa patients have co-morbid personality disorders (mostly Cluster B - Narcissistic, Histrionic, Antisocial, Borderline). more...
Psychosis and Delusions: Psychosis, Delusions, and Personality Disorders
Category: Personality Disorders
Psychotic microepisodes are common in certain personality disorders, most notably the Borderline and Schizotypal. more...
Eating Disorders and Personality: Eating Disorders are often misdiagnosed as Personality Disorders
Category: Personality Disorders
A whopping 40% of Anorexia Nervosa/Bulimia Nervosa patients have co-morbid personality disorders (mostly Cluster B - Narcissistic, Histrionic, Antisocial, Borderline). more...
Misdiagnosing Asperger: Asperger's Disorder is often misdiagnosed as a Personality Disorder
Category: Personality Disorders
Asperger's Disorder is often misdiagnosed as a cluster B personality disorder, most often as the Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). more...
Category: Personality Disorders
Syphilis in its tertiary (brain consuming) phase produces symptoms that are easily misdiagnosed as Bipolar Disorder comorbid with Personality Disorders. more...
Insanity Defense: Personality Disorders as an Insanity Defense
Category: Personality Disorders
But if personality disorders are not objective clinical entities - what should we make of the insanity defense (NGRI- Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity)? more...
Body Language: Body Language and Personality Disorders
Category: Personality Disorders
In itself, body language cannot and should not be used as a diagnostic tool. But, in conjunction with psychiatric interviews and psychological tests, it can provide an ad more...
Hateful Patient: Therapists find some patients intolerable
Category: Personality Disorders
Therapists, psychologists, social workers, and psychiatrists report negative feelings towards patients with personality disorders. more...
Alphabetical Index: Personality Disorders Topic Site Index
Category: Personality Disorders
Personality Disorders Topic alphabetical index to the articles and blogs - click on the links! more...
Brain and Personality: Brain physiology, neurochemistry and neurology and personality disorders
Category: Personality Disorders
The brain-injured may acquire traits and behaviors typical of certain personality disorders. more...
Personality Psychotherapy: Therapy and Treatment of Personality Disorders
Category: Personality Disorders
Most therapists now adhere to three modern methods: Brief Therapies, the Common Factors approach, and Eclectic techniques. more...
Depressive Personality: Depression and Personality Disorders
Category: Personality Disorders
The Depressive has pervasive and continuous depressive cognitions (thoughts) and behaviors. more...
Sadistic Personality: Gratuitous Cruelty
Category: Personality Disorders
The Sadistic Personality disorder is characterized by a pattern of gratuitous cruelty, aggression, and demeaning behaviors. more...
Compulsive Personality: Obsessive Perfectionism
Category: Personality Disorders
Obsessive-Compulsives are constantly drawing up and dreaming up lists, rules, orders, rituals, and organizational schemes. more...
Paranoid Personality: Surviving in a Hostile World
Category: Personality Disorders
The paranoid's world is hostile, arbitrary, malicious, and unpredictable. more...
Codependence: Emotional Extortion
Category: Personality Disorders
There is great confusion regarding the terms co-dependent, counter-dependent, and dependent. more...
Schizoid Personality: Self-sufficiency and Solitude
Category: Personality Disorders
Schizoids enjoy nothing and seemingly never experience pleasure. more...
Histrionic PD: Flirting with Sex
Category: Personality Disorders
Most patients with the Histrionic Personality Disorder are women. This immediately raises the question: Is this a real mental health disorder or a culture-bound syndrome more...
Narcissist vs. Psychopath: Merely Sources of Supply
Category: Personality Disorders
We all heard the terms "psychopath" or "sociopath". It is hard to distinguish narcissists from psychopaths. more...
Npd - Prevalence, Comorbidity: Narcissists Everywhere
Category: Personality Disorders
According to the DSM IV-TR, Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is diagnosed in between 2% and 16% of the population in clinical settings (between 0.5-1% of the gener more...
Cluster B Disorders: The Drama Club
Category: Personality Disorders
Cluster B (the Dramatic, Emotional, or Erratic Cluster) is comprised of the Antisocial, Borderline, Histrionic, and Narcissistic Personality Disorders. more...
Axes of Disorders: Axes to Grind
Category: Personality Disorders
The DSM uses five axes to analyze, classify, and describe these data. The patient (or subject) presents himself to a mental health diagnostician, is evaluated, tests are more...
What is Personality?: Not Character or Temperament
Category: Personality Disorders
Our personality is who we truly are, that which makes us unique, our vertiable charcater, traits, qualities, and shortcomings. more...
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