Personality disorders Articles
Your boss is controlling and mean. And you find yourself asking, “is my boss a sociopath?” And what should you do if so? Is your boss a sociopath? “Sociopath” is a misused term. What you probably want to ask is, “does my boss have narcissistic personality disorder?”. Narcissistic personality disorder (NDP) can include such traits...
Confused by a diagnosis of emotional dsyregulation? It’s a complicated term for a personality trait that means you are more emotional than most. What is emotional dysregulation? Think of a singer who can sing many more octaves than the people around her. She can’t stop herself from breaking into song spontaneously when the ‘muse’ hits,...
If you are suffering from borderline personality disorder, you are highly emotionally sensitive. This means you have intense and unstable relationships. And herein lies the problem – therapy is at heart a relationship between you and your therapist. If you are borderline, your ways of relating will affect the ways you interact with a therapist. Some forms of...
The verb ‘engulf’ refers to something being swallowed up, overwhelmed, or submerged. But when we are using the word in a psychological sense, what is engulfment? Engulfment can refer to a tendency to over-immerse yourself in relationships. You depend on the other to meet all your needs, even demanding that they do so. So, to...
Uncertain modern times can leave us all feeling a little paranoid now and then. But when does paranoia shift from moments of uncertainty to a real psychological concern? What is paranoia? As a general term, paranoia is the belief you are being threatened or secretly persecuted by something or someone, even if you have no...
According to social media and the internet, it would seem that nowadays, everyone’s boss and ex is a sociopath. But what is a sociopath, really? Are you using the term correctly? What is a sociopath, really? Sociopathy is not an illness you can find under a microscope. Like all mental health labels, it is a...
“Grand” in French means ‘big’, a hint to what grandiosity is all about. It involves thinking you are the ‘big fish’ and everyone else is just a tadpole. If you suffer from grandiosity, the following will sound familiar: You feel better than others, regardless of facts that prove otherwise You think you are special and...
“He is such a narcissist”. It’s a common insult these days. But what is a narcissist, really? What is a narcissist? The term has become rather muddied. Originally, it came from the Greek myth of Narcissus, a beautiful young Greek man who rejected the love of a nymph in favour of his own reflection in...
An occasional visit to a casino or betting house, or a casual game of online poker, can be harmless fun for some. For others, it can turn into a life-destroying habit. And research shows that if you have a personality disorder, you are far more likely to fall into the latter category, with compulsive gambling and...
A relatively new kind of psychotherapy, schema therapy was originally designed to help those who had personality disorders or found that other forms of psychotherapy just weren’t working for them. But its focus on understanding what drives our ways of being has also been found to help with depression, relationship problems, and general self-awareness. What is schema...
