Dependent Personality Disorder: Symptoms, Causes And Treatment

To talk about a personality disorder, we must understand that it is altered when we observe that people react to daily responsibilities in an inflexible manner, or when their perceptions and behaviors lead to personal discomfort or a decrease in opportunities to learn and grow.

It is important to understand that personality disorders show a permanent and inflexible pattern of the internal experience of behavior, where the person deviates markedly from the expectations of subjective culture. Personality disorders begin in adolescence or early adulthood, are stable over time and brings discomfort or prejudice for the individual or those around him.

According to the DSM-V⁽¹⁾dependent personality disorder is understood as the a person’s dominant and excessive need to be cared for, which leads to submissive behavior and exaggerated attachment. It also involves an excessive fear of separation, which begins in the early stages of adulthood and extends in different contexts.

In order to identify it, it is important to know the characteristics of dependent personality disorder and what behaviors people who suffer from it have. We see them below:

• It is difficult for you to make everyday decisions without the advice and excessive reassurance of other people.
• Needs others to take responsibility in most important areas of your life.
• Has difficulty expressing disagreement with others for fear of losing their support or approval.
• Has difficulty starting projects or doing things on your own due to lack of confidence in one’s own judgment or ability and not due to lack of motivation or energy.
• Goes too far to gain acceptance and support of others, to the point of voluntarily doing things that displease him.
• Feel uncomfortable or helpless when alone due to exaggerated fear of being unable to take care of oneself.
• When a close relationship ends, you urgently seek another relationship for care and support.
• feel a unrealistic worry for fear of being abandoned and have to take care of yourself.

The main symptoms of dependent personality disorder (DPD) are usually the following:

• Pessimism.
• Unsafety in themselves.
• Tendency to minimize your capabilities and its values.
• They may constantly refer to themselves as stupid.
• They take the criticism and the disapproval as evidence of its uselessness.
• They lose faith in themselves.
• They seek overprotection and be dominated by others.
• Work activity may be impaired if independent initiative is required.
• They avoid the positions of responsibility.
• They experience anxiety when making decisions. For these cases, in this article, we tell you how to make difficult decisions in life.
• The social relationships They tend to be limited to few people on whom the subject is dependent.
• High risk of suffering from a mood disorder, anxiety disorder or maladaptive disorders.
• Are constantly on alert and nervous about what will happen.
• Low self-esteem: They constantly need the approval of others and are always waiting for others to give them recognition. In this article you will see how to psychologically help a person with low self-esteem.
• A lot difficulty tolerating psychological pain or physical that they try to avoid.

In discussing the principles of personality and associated disorders, Millon⁽²⁾ emphasizes that personality develops from interaction between genetic and environmental factors. If we take the above into account, the causes of dependent personality disorder are fruit of the imbalance of the systems that make it up, neither one nor the other being determining.

In addition, it is also important to note that the cause of a personality disorder is independent of the level of education and socioeconomic situation.

The main treatment for dependent personality disorder is cognitive behavioral psychotherapy that is, one that focuses attention on erroneous beliefs and seeks to modify them, considering that it will involve emotional and behavioral changes.

This therapy uses tools from behaviorism, such as thought stopping and cognitivism, problem solving and thought control. In this article you will find more information about what behaviorism is in psychology.

Next, we show you what are the basic pillars of cognitive behavioral psychotherapy:

• Promote the observation of negative automatic thoughts.
• Identify the irrational beliefs that maintain negative automatic thoughts.
• Reject irrational beliefs, replacing them with more useful and adaptive ones.

In some cases, it is advisable to combination of psychotherapy with biological treatments such as psychotropic drugs, but they should not be treated only with these, but should be an accompaniment that enhances advances in psychotherapy.

In the case of administering psychotropic drugs for dependent personality disorder, benzodiazepines, or SSRI antidepressants, monoamine oxidase inhibitors, tricyclics or selective serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors may be used, depending on the specific case.

Dependent personality disorder must be differentiated from dependence that arises as a consequence of Axis I disorders, such as mood disorders, agoraphobia anxiety disorder, and other anxiety disorders.

Although many personality disorders are characterized by dependent traits, dependent personality disorder can be distinguished by a predominance of submissive behavior the adhesion and the reactivity in the person.

Differences from borderline personality disorder

Although similar symptoms appear, there are aspects that allow dependent personality disorder to be differentiated from borderline personality disorder. We see them below:

• Dependent personality disorder reacts to abandonment with increased meekness and submission urgent search for a replacement relationship that provides care and support.
• Borderline personality disorder reacts with feelings of emptiness and emotionally, with anger and making demands, showing a more unstable and intense pattern of relationships.

Differences with histrionic personality disorder

Although both experience a strong need for reassurance and approval and may appear childish and clingy, the basis of dependent personality disorder is self-nullification and compliant behavior, whereas in histrionic personality disorder manifests itself through extravagance with active demands for attention.

In this article you will find more information about histrionic personality disorder: causes, symptoms and treatment.

Differences from avoidant personality disorder

Both avoidant personality disorder and dependent personality disorder are characterized by feelings of inferiority, hypersensitivity to criticism, and a need for reassurance. The main differences between them are:

• Dependent personality disorder shows a pattern of search and maintenance of contacts with the people important to them.
• Avoidant personality disorder avoids and stays away from relationships since they suffer from a strong fear of humiliation and rejection that causes them to isolate themselves until they are sure of being accepted.

Discover everything you need to know about avoidant personality disorder: symptoms, causes, characteristics and treatment in this article.

This article is merely informative, at PsychologyFor we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

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