Paranoid Personality Disorder Case Study

According to American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition, ten personality disorders were formally classified as antisocial, avoidant, borderline, dependent, histrionic, narcissistic, obsessive-compulsive, paranoid, schizoid, and schizotypal (Huprich 3). Paranoid personality disorder is one of the ten, and it is generally categorized with people that have delusions of persecution, jealousy, excessive self-importance, and the inability to reason (Kantor 24). Despite this categorization, it is hard to recognize this disorder because it can have characteristics of being covert, overt, severe, or less severe. Because of this, it is hard to determine whether patients are actually diagnosed

It has been shown that poor parent-child relationships and family structure during childhood can result in an adult diagnosed with paranoid personality disorder. Many children that lack attention, affection and freedom in their families become adults that are emotionally unstable and constantly insecure about themselves and their surroundings. Consequently, the Parental Bonding Index and the Family Environment Scale were developed to measure the quality of parenting and family structure respectively (Paris 54). These scales help indicate possibilities for paranoid personality disorder, but there are exceptions to this due to countless parental roles that result in this disorder. Parental roles that influence symptoms of paranoia vary from parents who spoil their children and parents who encourage their children to act out to parents who try to be seductive (Kanton 109-10). Children that are spoiled always have too much permission even when it comes to throwing tantrums and fighting with other children. Similarly, children that are encouraged to act out have too much freedom and can perform actions to promote violence easily overlooked. Lastly, children with parents who behave seductively often believe that adults are not trustworthy, resulting in a reserved and sheltered personality. Even though the practices of families seem miniscule on a day-to-day basis, they

Psychodynamics is the interconnection of a person’s unconscious mind, conscious mind and emotions. Trauma and anger issues are major examples in psychodynamics that affect paranoid personality disorder. Many studies have shown that sexual and physical abuses are the most common traumatic experiences found in people with paranoid personality disorder. People affected by sexual and physical abuse are commonly associated with borderline personality (BPD), a post-traumatic stress disorder. In a four-year study performed by Dr. Hallie Zweig-Frank, two hundred and seventy one people with personality disorders were examined, and the patients were divided equally by gender (Paris 56). After numerous of lengthy interviews, results showed that seventy percent of females and forty five percent of males, both with BPD, had experienced sexual abuse; for nonborderline personality disorders, forty five percent of females and twenty five percent of males experienced sexual abuse (Paris 56). From this experiment, it is concluded that trauma occurs most frequently in BPD, but overall, trauma experiences are largely associated with paranoid personality