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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Article
Author(s)
Genziana Lay
Full-Text PDF XML 2805 Views
DOI:10.17265/2159-5542/2019.08.001
Affiliation(s)
Private Psychotherapy Practice, Sassari, Italy
ABSTRACT
Personality disorders are a
class of mental disorders involving enduring maladaptive patterns of behaving,
thinking, and feeling which profoundly affect functioning, inner experience,
and relationships. This work focuses on three Cluster B personality disorders (PDs)
(Borderline, Narcissistic, and Antisocial PDs), specifically illustrating how
relational dysfunction manifests in each condition. People with Borderline
Personality Disorder (BPD) experience pervasive instability in mood, behavior,
self-image, and interpersonal patterns. In relationships, they tend to
alternate between extremes of over-idealization and devaluation. Intense fear
of abandonment, fluctuating affect, inappropriate anger, and black/white
thinking deeply influence how they navigate personal relationships, which are
often unstable, chaotic, dramatic, and ultimately destructive. They have a
fundamental incapacity to self-soothe the explosive emotional states they
experience as they oscillate between fears of engulfment and abandonment. This
leads to unpredictable, harmful, impulsive behavior and chronic feelings of
insecurity, worthlessness, shame, and emptiness. Their relationships are
explosive, marked by hostility/contempt for self and partner alternating with
bottomless neediness. Manipulation, lying, blaming, raging, and “push-pull”
patterns are common features. Individuals with Narcissistic Personality
Disorder (NPD) exhibit a long-standing pattern of grandiosity and lack of
empathy. They have an exaggerated sense of self-importance, are self-absorbed, feel
entitled, and tend to seek attention. Scarcely concerned with others’ feelings,
they can be both charming and exploitative. Oversensitive to criticism, they
are prone to overt or covert rage, gaslighting and self-referential thinking. Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD) is marked
by impulsive, callous, and irresponsible behavior with no regard to be
manipulative, parasitic, aggressive, cold, cruel, and self-serving. In addition
to analyzing relational dysfunction in each disorder, this paper presents three
relational case studies (BPD-couple, NPD-parent/child, APD-various relations)
and discusses treatment implications.
KEYWORDS
dysfunction, personality disorders, Cluster B, borderline, narcissistic, antisocial, relationships
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