Condition

Criteria

Paranoid personality disorder

Distrust and suspicion of others such that motives are interpreted as sinister. Symptoms may include:

• Suspects others are exploiting or harming the patient despite lacking supporting evidence
  
  
• Unjustified doubts about others’ loyalty and trustworthiness
  
  
• Reluctant to confide in others due to unwarranted fear of how information may be used
  
  
• Reads negative meanings into others’ remarks
  
  
• Persists in bearing grudges
  
  
• Perceives attacks on character
  
  
• Suspects spouse’s infidelity

Schizoid personality disorder

Pattern of detachment from social relationships and restricted expression of emotions in interpersonal settings. Symptoms may include:

• Neither desires nor enjoys close relationships, even with family
  
  
• Almost always chooses solitary activities
  
  
• Has little desire for sexual experiences with another person
  
  
• Takes pleasure in few activities
  
  
• Lacks close friends
  
  
• Indifferent to others’ praise or criticism
  
  
• Emotionally cold

Schizotypal personality disorder

Pattern of acute discomfort with close relationships, distorted thinking and perceiving or eccentric behavior. Symptoms may include:

• Personalizing external events
  
  
• Odd beliefs or magical thinking that influences behavior
  
  
• Unusual perceived experiences, including bodily illusions
  
  
• Odd thinking and speech
  
  
• Suspiciousness or paranoid ideas
  
  
• Inappropriate, odd, stiff behavior
  
  
• Lack of close friends
  
  
• Excessive and lasting social anxiety

Condition

Criteria

Antisocial personality disorder

Disregard for and violation of the rights of others that has occurred since age 15. Individual must currently be at least 18 years of age. Symptoms may include:

• Failure to conform to social norms and laws
  
  
• Deceitfulness including repeated lying, use of aliases or conning others for personal profit or pleasure
  
  
• Impulsiveness or failure to plan ahead
  
  
• Irritability and aggressiveness
  
  
• Reckless disregard for safety
  
  
• Consistent irresponsibility
  
  
• Lack of remorse

Borderline personality disorder

Pattern of instability in interpersonal relationships and self-image. Symptoms may include:

• Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment
  
  
• Pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships
  
  
• Unstable self-image with impulsive behavior in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (spending, sex, binge eating)
  
  
• Recurrent suicidal thoughts or behavior and/or self-injury (e.g., cutting)
  
  
• Unstable moods
  
  
• Feelings of emptiness, loneliness
  
  
• Inappropriate, intense anger
  
  
• Stress-related paranoid ideas

Histrionic personality disorder

Excessive emotions and attention-seeking behavior. Symptoms may include:

• Discomfort in situations in which the patient is not the center of attention
  
  
• Interactions characterized by inappropriate sexually seductive or provocative behavior
  
  
• Rapidly shifting and shallow expression of emotions
  
  
• Draws attention to self with physical appearance
  
  
• Emotionally intense speech
  
  
• Tendency to be dramatic and theatrical
  
  
• Easily influenced by others/circumstances
  
  
• Considers relationships to be more intimate than they are

Narcissistic personality disorder

Pattern of inflated concept of identity, need for admiration and lack of empathy. Symptoms may include:

• Grandiose sense of self-importance
  
  
• Preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty or ideal love
  
  
• Belief that patient is “special” and can only be understood by high-status people
  
  
• Need for excessive admiration
  
  
• Sense of entitlement
  
  
• Takes advantage of others
  
  
• Lacks empathy
  
  
• Envious of others, or believes others are jealous of patient
  
  
• Arrogance and haughty behaviors

Condition

Criteria

Avoidant personality disorder 
(APD)

Patterned social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy and hypersensitivity to criticism. Symptoms may include:

• Avoiding work/school activities that involve significant interpersonal contact
  
  
• Unwillingness to get involved with people unless certain of being liked
  
  
• Restraint in intimate relationships because of the fear of being shamed or ridiculed
  
  
• Preoccupation with being criticized/rejected in social situations
  
  
• Inhibited in new relationships by fear of inadequacy
  
  
• Views self as socially inept or inferior
  
  
• Reluctant to take personal risks for fear of embarrassment

Dependent personality disorder

Excessive need to be taken care of that leads to submissive, clinging behavior and fears of separation. Symptoms may include:

• Difficulty making everyday decisions without excessive advice and reassurance from others
  
  
• Need for others to assume responsibility for most major areas of the patient’s life
  
  
• Difficulty expressing disagreement with others for fear of loss of support or approval
  
  
• Difficulty initiating things by oneself
  
  
• Goes to great lengths to get support
  
  
• Feels helpless when alone
  
  
• Seeks a relationship quickly when another relationships ends
  
  
• Preoccupied with fears of being left alone

Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder

Preoccupation with orderliness, perfectionism and mental and interpersonal control. Symptoms may include:

• Preoccupation with details, rules, lists, order, organization or schedules to the extent that the major point of the activity is lost
  
  
• Perfectionism that interferes with finishing tasks
  
  
• Devoted to work and productivity to the exclusion of leisure activities and friendships
  
  
• Overconscientious and inflexible about morality and ethics
  
  
• Unable to discard worn-out objects
  
  
• Reluctant to delegate tasks
  
  
• Adopts miserly spending patterns
  
  
• Rigid and stubborn