In psychology, personality disorders, also known as pathological personalities, mainly refer to personality maladjustments with mental symptoms. These individuals exhibit fixed responses to environmental stimuli, experience adaptive functional deficiencies in perception and thinking, and adopt unjust and inappropriate behavioral patterns in their speech and actions towards society but without accompanying mental symptoms.
This adaptation deficiency primarily refers to self-emotional responses made without cognitive or intellectual impairments, where a person’s abstract thinking is excessive or abnormally developed. Such individuals often lack what we commonly refer to as “humanity” and may even get stuck on insignificant details, displaying a very typical yet excessively rational personality type.
These typical yet excessively rational individuals often struggle to recognize or ignore social demands on themselves, find it challenging to decide on appropriate actions in certain situations, fail to respond appropriately to their surrounding environment, and have difficulty managing interpersonal relationships. They struggle to integrate into groups, easily conflict with others in certain situations, lack a sense of responsibility, and may face criticism for negligence at work.
Their actions and behaviors may sometimes be extreme, even disregarding societal ethical norms and engaging in behaviors that are harmful to themselves and others, such as violating rules and laws. Many people mistakenly equate personality disorders with mental illnesses in their daily lives and work. However, from a medical diagnostic perspective, personality disorders should be considered a special phase between mental illness and normalcy, also known as a gray area. While individuals with personality disorders are not strictly classified as mentally ill, they cannot be considered entirely normal either. Looking at it from a modern medical standpoint, they can be seen as a special group of individuals.
When examining the manifestations of personality disorders, they should be categorized into several types due to their complex nature. In general circumstances, they can be classified into three categories: 1. Eccentric in behavior, often exhibiting anomalies, including paranoid personality disorder, schizoid personality disorder, etc. 2. Intense emotions, fluctuating moods, prone to excitement, and instability, including narcissistic personality disorder, histrionic personality disorder, etc. 3. Tense, withdrawn, avoidant, dependent personality disorders.
