Schizophrenia And Cluster B Personality Disorders Case Study

On June 26, 2015, same-sex marriage was legalized in every state across the United States by the Supreme Court. Before this time, support surged for the LGBT movement (also known as the Gay Rights movement). The T in the abbreviation LGBT stands for Transgender. A person who is transgender feels as if their gender is different than what was assigned to them at birth. A transsexual is a transgender person who feels the need to undergo sex reassignment surgery or a person who already has underwent said surgery. The LGBT movement typically portrays transgenderism and transsexualism as normal expressions of human behavior and gender identity. However, according to most modern psychiatrists, it isn’t a normal expression of behavior. Still,

In terms of spectrums of mental illnesses, Gender Dysphoria shares characteristics with Schizophrenia Spectrum Illnesses (and Cluster A Personality Disorders) and Cluster B Personality Disorders. According to the DSM-V, a Schizophrenia Spectrum Illness has at least two of the following symptoms: “. . . delusions, hallucinations, disorganized thinking (speech), grossly disorganized or abnormal motor behavior (including catatonia), and negative symptoms” (87). GID meets two of the criteria: delusions and negative symptoms. Delusions, according to Behavioral Science Major Edward Stump, “[are] something that is perceived as real, when in actuality [are] false.” Stump goes on to say that “Schizophrenia is a disease of the mind that causes a fusion between the real world and a fake world” and that “[transgenderism] is indeed a psychosis or a Schizophrenia because they blend the real world with a fake one. It can even be considered a type of personality disorder”. The delusional part in GID is that an affected person believes that they either are the opposite sex (or another gender) than they were assigned at birth or that they can become something different than they were assigned at birth. Negative Symptoms include changes in emotional expression, often similar to those in depressive disorders. Two negative symptoms are Anhedonia and Avolition.

One risk is an extremely elevated suicide rate. The suicide rate of those who are trans is roughly 41% (Haas, Ann 2). The suicide rate is higher than some of the most severe mental disabilities, which are: Bipolar Disorder (~20%), Schizophrenia (5%), and Major Depressive Disorder (12%) (Baldessarini, Ross 1). Another large risk among trans people would be an increased risk of developing substance abuse issues, personality disorders, and other mental disorders. According to a study by Duisin, et al., people with GID have much higher rates of personality disorders than their heterosexual counterparts. In a study of 30 heterosexuals who are cisgender versus 30 people with GID, 11 out of the 30 Heterosexual participants could be diagnosed with a PD while 20 out of 30 of those with GID could be diagnosed with a PD (Duisin, et al.). Cluster A and Cluster B Personality Disorders are Paranoid PD, Schizoid PD, Schizotypal PD, Histrionic PD, Narcissistic PD, Borderline PD, and Antisocial PD. Out of their 30 non-transgender counterparts, 13, 5, 2, 5, 4, 10, and 0 were diagnosed with respective personality disorders (Duisin, et al.). Out of the heterosexual cisgender control group, 2, 1, 0, 5, 2, 4, and 0 were diagnosed with respective personality disorders (Duisin, et al.). In terms of high-risk behaviors, Cochran stated that LGBT youth had