A Guide to Mental Illness - Paranoid Personality Disorder

DESCRIPTION

Paranoid personality disorder is when a person suffers from paranoia to the point of damaging relationships and friendships.^[1] 'Paranoia' is when you become worried and suspicious about the hidden motives of others around you and obsessively believe that someone is out to take advantage of you.^[2] You find it hard to trust anyone, even people close to you.

CAUSES

There is no specific identified cause of paranoid personality disorder, but there are certain types of people who are more likely to suffer from the disorder.^[3] (See 'Prevalence and Susceptibility' below)

SYMPTOMS

Symptoms include suspicion, concern with hidden motives, expecting to be exploited by others, inability to work in teams, social isolation, poor self image, detachment, hostility and a poor sense of humour.[3] There are no known direct physical effects of this disorder.

PREVALENCE AND SUSCEPTIBILITY

Those who had a negative childhood experience and/or felt threatened or mistreated by their parents may be more susceptible to this disorder^[3] as they may not have grown up feeling they could trust anybody. Some links have also been made between families with a schizophrenic member and paranoid personality disorder.^[3]

TREATMENT

It can be treated, but this is difficult as due to the untrusting nature of the patient they may not want to initiate treatment or will not feel that their doctor is helping them. Both medication and therapy is used are used but generally therapy is the most effective.^[3]

SOURCES