Depressive Personality: Causes, Symptoms And Risk Factors
Surely you have ever thought that in life there are people who always tend to see things in a particularly negative way. They breathe pessimism, sadness, dejection and fatalism, and it seems almost impossible to get them to see things a little less dark.
They see the future in such a negative way that they can even infect you with their pessimism and hopelessness And it seems that the positive things that happen to them in life are of little importance, they always see something negative in it, as if they were wearing glasses with an exclusive filter to perceive dark clouds and sadness.
What happens to these types of people? Do you constantly suffer from major depression? Do they have a persistent depressive disorder? Is being depressed a personality trait?
In this article we are going to talk about depressive personality disorder (PDD), which does not appear in current classifications such as the DSM-5 or the ICD-10, but has been the subject of study over many years by such renowned authors. such as Kraepelin (1896), Schneider (1923), Millon (1994) and Beck (1979).
Depressive personality disorder according to Theodore Millon
According to Theodore Millon, depressive personality disorders (what Millon calls the “surrender pattern”) are included within Personalities with pleasure difficulties. According to Millon, depressed people have a series of personality traits in common, which can be manifested and described at different levels:
Expressively dejected, his appearance and state convey hopeless helplessness Interpersonally helpless: due to the feeling of vulnerability and helplessness, he will beg others to take care of him and protect him, fearing abandonment. He will seek or demand guarantees of affection, perseverance and dedication. They tend to be introverts, so they may have problems finding a partner. When they find it, they become very dependent on it.
2. Phenomenological level
They are cognitively pessimistic: they show defeatist, fatalistic and negative attitudes in almost everything. They always expect the worst. He interprets the events of life in the most bleak way possible, and feels hopeless because things will never get better in the future.
Their self-image is “useless.” They judge themselves as insignificant, useless, incapable, of no value to themselves or others They feel guilty for not having positive traits. Abandoned object representations: early life experiences are lived empty, without richness, without joyful elements.
3. Intrapsychic level
4. Biophysical level
Melancholic mood: crying easily, sad, sad, surly, worried and with a tendency to ruminate on ideas. They tend to feel moody. They get angry with those who try to exaggerate the good at the expense of the realistic.
Clinical characteristics according to the DSM-IV-TR (APA, 2000):
In 1994, the APA introduced the term “Depressive Personality Disorder” into the DSM-IV in the appendix of Research Criteria for Personality Disorders. According to the DSM-IV-TR (APA, 2000) the fundamental characteristics of depressive personality disorder (PDD) consist of:
Differential diagnosis
People with depressed personality are at high risk for major depressive disorder or persistent depressive disorder (previously known as “dysthymia”). It must be clarified that persistent depressive disorder is transitory, it can be caused by a stressful stimulus and appear at any time, while major depressive disorder is linked to the personality in a stable way and interferes in most areas of the subject’s life. over time. In other words, the symptomatic condition is permanent and causes clinically significant discomfort or social or occupational deterioration.
Much of the controversy regarding identifying depressive personality disorder as a separate category is the lack of usefulness in differentiating it from dysthymia. Besides, It has been suggested that depressive personality disorder may be confused and overlap with other personality disorders (dependent, obsessive-compulsive and avoidant).
Causes
What are the causes of depressive personality disorder? We will emphasize the environmental factors that seem to be related to this disorder, since the biological influences are not entirely clear (Millon and Davis, 1998):
1. Deficient emotional attachment in childhood
If the child does not experience unequivocal signs of acceptance and affection during childhood, feelings of emotional detachment, insecurity and isolation can form These children lack experiences of affection and proximity with their parents, who are usually distant and indifferent. Children tend to give up on seeking parental emotional support, learn to make few demands on their environment, and develop feelings of helplessness and hopelessness.
2. Helplessness
The child who in the future will be a depressed adult is humiliated in childhood by his father, who usually makes him feel worthless, preventing you from developing feelings of competence and confidence. Children learn that they do not know how to function well on their own, and they begin to believe that they will never have that ability, which is why they feel deeply hopeless.
3. Reinforcement of sadness as an identity
Expressions of sadness and helplessness serve to attract attention, thus getting others to give them love and signs of affection that they need so much In this way, they get reinforcements for their depressive behavior. This can be a double-edged sword, because although in the short term it may work, in the long term what is achieved is that those around him get tired of his depressive behavior and end up avoiding him.
4. Disparity between what is and what should have been
By constantly feeling unloved, worthless and inadequate, the person with depressive personality disorder finds differences between what supposedly should have been and what it really is. Many times this disparity arises from the unrealistic expectations placed on the child by the parents. From this disparity, feelings of emptiness and hopelessness are born.
