Contents:
- Medical Video: What is Dependent Personality Disorder? Mental Health Help with Kati Morton
- What is dependent personality disorder?
- What causes a person to have a dependent personality?
- What are the signs and symptoms of dependent personality disorder?
- Can dependent personality disorder be removed?
Medical Video: What is Dependent Personality Disorder? Mental Health Help with Kati Morton
As social beings, humans need other people to interact and help each other when experiencing difficulties. But if you are too spoiled to truly not be able to live independently because you must always depend on others, and feel anxious helpless when no one else can be asked for help, this might be a sign that you have a dependent personality disorder.
What is dependent personality disorder?
Basically, personality disorder is a type of mental health disorder that affects the way a person thinks and behaves. Dependent personality disorder is defined as someone who has excessive and unwarranted anxiety, which causes him to feel he cannot do things alone. People with dependent personality disorders always feel the need to be cared for and feel very anxious when left or separated from someone they consider important in their lives.
A person with dependent personality disorder often looks passive and does not believe in his abilities. This has an impact on their ability to live life, especially in socializing and working. Someone with this personality disorder is also more at risk of experiencing depression, phobias, and deviant behavior to abuse drugs. In addition, there is also the possibility that they will be involved in unhealthy relationships if they depend on people who are wrong, or even experience violence from the dominant partner.
What causes a person to have a dependent personality?
It is not known what are the main causes that cause a person to become so dependent on others. But experts believe that this is influenced by the patient's biopsychosocial conditions. Personality is formed from how the person's social interaction in the family and friendship during his childhood While psychological factors are related to how a social environment, especially the family, forms a person's mindset in facing a problem. However, genetics also affects the tendency of someone to have a dependent personality, because genetics also have a role in shaping one's personality.
In addition some types of experience can also increase a person's risk of experiencing dependent personality disorders, including:
- Trauma due to someone's abandonment
- Experiencing acts of violence
- Being in an abusive relationship for a long time
- Childhood trauma
- Parenting authoritarian parents
What are the signs and symptoms of dependent personality disorder?
Signs of dependent personality disorder will tend to be difficult to recognize if the sufferer is still in the age of children or adolescents. A person can be said to experience dependent personality disorder when he has excessive dependence on other people when entering early adulthood. At this age phase, a person's personality and mindset tend to settle with fewer changes.
Here are some common signs if someone has a dependent personality disorder:
- Difficulty making decisions in everyday matters - they also tend to ask for advice and feel they need someone to make sure of the choices they make
- Difficult to show disagreement - because they are anxious about losing help and recognition from others
- Lack initiative - always waiting for someone else to ask him to do something and feel uncomfortable doing something voluntary
- Feeling uncomfortable when alone - experience abnormal fear that he will not be able to do anything alone. Loneliness can also make sufferers experience nervousness, anxiety, feeling helpless to trigger panic attack.
- It's hard to start something yourself - more likely due to lack of confidence in their abilities compared to laziness and lack of motivation
- Always looking for bonds with other people - especially when breaking up from a relationship, because it has the view that a relationship is a source of attention and assistance.
Like other personality disorders, dependent personality disorders tend to be difficult to recognize and require psychologists and psychiatrists to recognize them. Most sufferers will not seek therapy for their problems, unless something happens that causes them to feel very stressed due to the interference they have.
Can dependent personality disorder be removed?
Dependent personality disorder tends to persist for a long time but can experience a decrease in intensity with age. Therapy in dealing with dependent personality disorders tends not to use drugs but through psychotherapy with speech therapy methods. The main goal of this therapy is to foster self-confidence to socialize and help sufferers understand their condition. Usually speech therapy is carried out in the short term, because if done in the long term the patient is also at risk of experiencing dependence on the therapist.
In addition, to prevent dependent personality disorders to be passed on to children avoid authoritarian parenting and build a family environment that encourages children's interpersonal and social abilities.
