Personality Disorders

After reading over the ten personality disorders presented in chapter nine I decided which personality I would prefer to work with and which one I would most likely decline. Both of the disorders that I chose lie within the personality disorders characterized by dramatic, emotional, or erratic behavior. I found it very interesting to see how these disorders characterized under the same classification are so similar yet hold different attributes that set them far enough apart from one another that would lead me to favor one diagnosis and not want to take a patient with a particular diagnosis into consideration.

The disorder that I would most likely decline working with would be borderline personality disorder. Although, through the readings there were many disorders that I disfavored this one stuck out the most. All of the characteristics of borderline personality disorder did not strike me at first as something that I definitely would not want to work with. Actually, it was quite opposite; I thought that maybe this might be someone that I would want to work with. I then continued on and discovered that people with borderline personality disorder have the same problems with their therapists as they do with other relationships they hold. That did not even occur to me about the personality disorders I was reading about. It would only make sense that if a person has trouble with relationships in his or her life they are more likely to have troubles with their relationship with their therapist. I looked at the therapist/ client situation as just that, a situation, not a relationship. Researching this disorder made me realize more about the other disorders and eliminating them from my favoring position more so to an unfavorable position.

Borderline personality disorder includes such characteristics as attention seeking. This in turn puts a great deal of stress on the therapist. Clients are prone to go to drastic measures such as self-mutilation or other destructive behaviors to grab the therapist's attention. Phone calls late at night would be the most annoying to me. I realize that this would be a part of being a therapist, but people with borderline personality disorder appear to be excessively needy and ever changing. I feel that I would start to become numb to the attention seeking leading me to be less empathetic to the client. Patients with this disorder go through the same feelings they do for others, adulation and loathing. These feelings can lead to ending therapy. This would be the most difficult to deal with. It would be very hard to treat a patient that does not want to be in therapy or holds ill will for the person trying to treat them. This could lead to defiance of the therapist's suggestions and being uncooperative leading sessions to be unproductive. I personally know that I would become very disheartened and frustrated by such behavior leading me to become less helpful to the client. In the end, I feel that I could not be as helpful to a person with borderline personality disorder because of my growing annoyance with certain attributes associated with the disorder and how they would affect me.

In contrast, I chose narcissistic personality disorder as the disorder that I would most favor. The reason I chose this is because it appears to be the least threatening of disorders. People with narcissistic personality disorder are of a higher functioning than most people with personality disorders. This disorder drew me in because in high school I had a friend that portrayed many of the symptoms of someone with narcissistic personality disorder. She was constantly seeking the attention of others, but would not give the same attention in return. She was constantly wearing outrageous clothes in the latest styles and taking steps to always be different than everyone else. Status and wealth were very important to her and she was always making up fabricated stories describing "how great" (her exact words) she was to make