Personality disorder is a category of mental health condition that is most challenging to treat. This is primarily due to the fact that individuals with personality disorders rarely seek therapy since they do not perceive their behavior as undesirable. Even if a person with these mental conditions pursues treatment, there are currently no pharmaceuticals that are licensed to treat any personality disorders, so contemporary medicine is still short on treatment choices. However, there are drugs that can help with anxiety and depression symptoms, which are frequent among people with personality disorders.
Treatment can differ and depend on the symptoms, intensity, and frequency. It usually includes both medications and psychotherapy. To ensure that the client’s all psychiatric, medical, and social needs are fulfilled, it is frequently necessary to take a team approach.
Medication
There are no drugs that have been approved to treat personality problems. However, several prescription drugs may assist to lessen a variety of personality disorder symptoms, including:
Antidepressants can alleviate impulsivity, rage, or depressed moods.
Mood stabilizers lessen irritability and hostility by preventing abrupt mood swings.
Antipsychotic drugs, commonly referred to as neuroleptics, can decrease psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions.
Anti-anxiety drugs, that can assist with sleeplessness, agitation, and anxiety.
Psychotherapy
Personality disorders can be handled with psychotherapy. The term “psychotherapy” refers to a range of therapeutic methods intended to help you recognize and alter problematic feelings, attitudes, and behaviors. Working with a mental health expert, such as a psychologist or psychiatrist, can offer you and your family support, knowledge, and direction. The following are the primary objectives of psychotherapy for personality disorders:
- Easing immediate discomfort, such as sadness and anxiousness.
- Assisting the individual in realizing that their issues are internal and not the result of external events or others.
- Reducing socially unacceptable and unhealthy conduct.
- Changing the character traits that are undesirable.
Some of the CBT techniques are universally used for treatment purposes in personality disorders.
Psychoeducation
The first thing that needs to be done after the diagnosis of personality disorder is to psychoeducate that person and his family as well. The practitioner usually makes a chart where he explains to the client about the biopsychosocial factor contributions and his symptoms to make him well aware of his condition.
Cognitive Restructuring
The maladaptive thoughts that require the change ask to rebuild. For that matters psychologist usually used evidence-based questioning to align the thought process.
Assertive Training
As the individual with this disorder does not know how to respond or express himself appropriately a fine amount of assertive training is prescribed to the client. Because symptoms indicate that in some of the category client express themselves so aggressively and, in some disorders, they are not able to take a stand for themselves, in this training the client has been taught how to say “NO” without making any offensive act.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy
DBT focuses on teaching those techniques that will reduce emotion dysregulation and unhealthful methods to deal with intense emotions.
Each personality problem demands a different kind of psychotherapy, which comes in a variety of forms.
For instance, research demonstrates the efficacy of dialectical behavior treatment (DBT) in treating borderline personality disorder, while cognitive-behavioral therapy is frequently beneficial for treating histrionic personality disorder (CBT).