Personality Disorders and Somatoform Disorders (NSC 392)

Comprehensive set of 90 vocabulary flashcards reviewing personality disorder clusters A, B, and C, along with somatic symptom and related disorders based on NSC 392 lecture notes.

Personality

A complex pattern of characteristics, largely outside of the person's awareness, comprising distinctive patterns of perceiving, feeling, thinking, coping, and behaving.

Personality Traits

Prominent aspects of personality exhibited in a wide range of social and personal contexts.

Temperament

Inherited dispositions that form the biological basis of personality.

Character

Environmental influences that shape personality development over time.

Treatment Resistant

A term used to describe personality disorders because of the deeply ingrained and persistent nature of personality traits.

Cluster A Personality Disorders

A group of personality disorders characterized by odd or eccentric behaviors, including Paranoid, Schizoid, and Schizotypal disorders.

Paranoid Personality Disorder

A Cluster A disorder characterized by longstanding, irrational suspicion and mistrust of others.

Schizoid Personality Disorder

A Cluster A disorder characterized by a lack of interest in social events and relationships, avoidance of time with others, and inability to experience joy and pleasure.

Schizotypal Personality Disorder

A Cluster A disorder characterized by odd behavior, unnatural thinking, cognitive distortions, and social and interpersonal deficits.

Paranoid Personality Features

Guarded, hostile, angry, unforgiving, holding grudges, and presenting persistent ideas of self-importance.

Paranoid Personality Nursing Approach

Requires a straightforward, business-like approach that establishes trust and actively involves the client in treatment planning.

Expressively Impassive

A key description of schizoid individuals who are interpersonally unengaged and unable to experience joy or pleasure in life.

Schizoid Personality Behaviors

Introverted and reclusive behavior where individuals act as lifelong loners with interests primarily in objects, things, and abstractions.

Schizoid Personality Interventions

Providing social skills training and encouraging social interactions.

Cognitive Distortion Symptoms (Schizotypal)

Distortions including ideas of reference, magical thinking, odd or unfounded beliefs, and perceptual aberrations.

Referential Thinking

A cognitive distortion symptom in schizotypal personality disorder where an individual believes neutral external events have direct personal significance.

Schizotypal Nursing Management

Focuses on developing recovery-oriented strategies to increase self-worth and positive attributes, skills training, and environmental management.

Cluster B Personality Disorders

A category of personality disorders characterized by dramatic, emotional, or erratic behaviors.

Antisocial Personality Disorder

A Cluster B disorder characterized by a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others beginning in childhood or early adolescence.

Borderline Personality Disorder

A Cluster B disorder marked by instability in self-identity, interpersonal relationships, and affects, combined with marked impulsivity.

Histrionic Personality Disorder

A Cluster B disorder characterized by attention-seeking behavior, sexual seductiveness, and emotions inappropriate in typical society.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

A Cluster B disorder featuring pervasive patterns of grandiosity, an inexhaustible need for attention, and a lack of empathy for others.

Antisocial Personality Priority of Care

Protection of other patients and staff from manipulation or abusive behaviors when expectations are not met.

Borderline Personality Problem Areas

Disruptive pattern of instability related to self-identity, interpersonal relationships, and affects combined with marked impulsivity and destructive behavior.

Dichotomous Thinking

A cognitive dysfunction in BPD where thinking is extreme on either end, viewing the world and people as absolutes (all good or all bad).

BPD Family Response

Families feel captive, burned out, and fearful of disagreements, leading to withdrawal which triggers the patient's fear of abandonment.

Staff Splitting

A challenge in treating BPD where the patient alternately perceives nursing and clinical team members as entirely good or bad.

BPD Priority Care

Managing the high risk for self-harm and suicide.

BPD Pharmacotherapy

Utilizes SSRIs, mood stabilizers, and anxiolytics, requiring careful monitoring.

BPD Psychotherapy Modalities

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT).

BPD Boundary Management

Establishing nurse self-awareness, maintaining personal boundaries, managing limit testing, and documenting agreed-on appointment expectations.

Histrionic Personality Characteristics

Excitable, emotional, moody, having an insatiable need for attention and approval, and feeling helpless when others are disinterested.

Histrionic Interpersonal Behavior

Sexually seductive to gain attention, provocative in appearance, dramatic and colorful in speech, uncomfortable with single relationships, and lacking loyalty and fidelity.

Histrionic Personality Interventions

Establishing a therapeutic relationship, supporting independent decision making, reinforcing personal strengths, encouraging autonomous action, and assertiveness groups.

Narcissistic Personality Characteristics

Grandiose with an inexhaustible need for attention, lacking empathy, possessing feelings of superiority or specialness, self-centered, and having a sense of entitlement.

Narcissistic Personality Primary Treatment

Individual psychotherapy is the most effective treatment modality.

Cluster C Personality Disorders

A category of personality disorders characterized by anxious or fearful behaviors.

Avoidant Personality Disorder

A Cluster C disorder characterized by avoidance of social situations, extreme sensitivity to negative comments/criticism, and feelings of inadequacy.

Dependent Personality Disorder

A Cluster C disorder characterized by clinging behavior, total submission, and a pervasive need to be taken care of by others.

Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder

A Cluster C disorder marked by strict conformity to rules, perfectionism, and control without true obsessions and compulsions.

Avoidant Personality Features

Appearing timid, shy, and hesitant, taking jobs on the sidelines, and fearing disapproval.

Avoidant Personality Nursing Interventions

Refraining from negative criticism, assisting in identifying positive responses from others, exploring prior successes, and social skills training.

Dependent Personality Features

Total submission, disregard for self, difficulty or impossibility in decision making, clinging to keep others close, and withdrawal from adult responsibilities.

Dependent Personality Interventions

Helping recognize dependent patterns, motivating desire to change, teaching undeveloped adult skills, supporting decision making, and potential antidepressants/antianxiety medications.

Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Features

Preoccupation with orderliness and perfectionism, complete devotion to work, discomfort with unstructured leisure, rigidity, stubbornness, and a need to control others.

OCPD Nursing Management

Focus on establishing a therapeutic relationship, encouraging flexibility, and promoting self-care. Utilize cognitive-behavioral strategies to address perfectionism and rigidity. Help them meet deadlines regardless of whether things are perfect.

Psychosomatic

The connection between mind and body used to describe, explain, and predict the psychological origins of illness and disease.

Somatization

The manifestation of psychological distress as physical symptoms, potentially resulting in functional changes or somatic descriptions.

Somatic Symptom Disorders

Disorders characterized by the presence of physical symptoms that cause significant distress or impairment, often without a clear medical cause, leading to excessive thoughts, feelings, or behaviors related to those symptoms.

SSD Common Signs

Symptoms changeable, diffuse abd complex, moving from one body system to the other. Being “sicker than sick”. Provider shopping and avoiding mental health providers. Symptoms not relieved by pain meds.

SSD Interventions

Pain management, relaxation, psychopharmalogic interventions, development of a therapeutic relationship, CBT, stress management, group interventions, counseling, group interventions focused on coping skill.

Illness Anxiety Disorder

A disorder characterized by excessive worry and fear of developing a serious illness based on misinterpretation of body cues (formerly hypochondriasis).

Functional Neurological Symptom Disorder

Also known as conversion disorder; characterized by unexplained, sudden deficits in sensory or motor function.

Pain Disorder

A somatic condition characterized by severe pain not relieved by pain medications, managed best with non-opioid medications, CBT, and a pain diary.

Primary Gains

Internal psychological benefits derived from somatic symptoms, such as the direct reduction or alleviation of anxiety.

Secondary Gains

External benefits obtained as a result of physical illness symptoms, such as extra attention or freedom from obligations.

Somatic Symptoms Across Lifespan

Children present symptoms of anxiety; adolescents initial symptoms include pelvic, abdominal, or menstrual difficulties; older adults present lifelong unrecognized patterns.

Body Dysmorphic Disorder

A disorder focused on real (slight) or imagined defects in appearance causing significant distress and interference with social functioning.

Factitious Disorder

Intentional, covert production of injury or illness motivated by the desire to adopt the patient role and develop a dependent relationship.

Factitious Disorder NOS (by Proxy)

A disorder in which a person intentionally inflicts injury or illness on another individual to gain medical attention for themselves.

Munchaüsen's Syndrome

The most severe and chronic form of factitious disorder.