How to Treat Personality Disorder

The maladaptive way of thinking, relating and perceiving the world and other people is called personality disorder. For a person who is suffering from this disorder, there can be a lot of problems with his functioning which will eventually cause subjective distress. There are different ways of treating personality disorders, here are some of them.

Medication Therapy

There are several medications for personality disorders to help relieve the signs and symptoms as well as help you get better from this illness. Before taking any medication, you will need to check with your doctor for proper assessment and evaluation. The correct dosage will need to be determined, and this will be checked if it has any drug interaction with other medications that you are currently taking. There are four types of medications used for personality disorders. Antidepressants are given for those who are suffering depressed mood, anger problems, being impulsive, irritability and hopelessness. There are also mood-stabilizing drugs that will help manage mood swings as well as reduce irritability and help with aggression and impulsivity. Anti-anxiety drugs are given if you have insomnia, agitation or anxiety and also impulsiveness. Lastly, antipsychotic drugs are helpful in managing the symptoms of psychosis, anger problems and anxiety.

Psychotherapy

For most personality disorders, psychotherapy is the choice of treatment. This is actually a general term that is used for the process of treatment for these disorders. Psychotherapy will help you learn about your current condition. You will be able to explore your feelings, behaviors and thoughts and learn how to appropriately deal with them so that you can manage the signs and symptoms that you are manifesting.

Cognitive therapy is a type of psychotherapy that will help you deal with the struggles involving your thinking. This will help you develop the necessary skills to identify dysfunctional thinking as well as to modify the beliefs that you have and relate to other people in an appropriate manner. Behavioral therapy is another type of psychotherapy that is applied for personality disorders by using certain techniques that will emphasize desirable behaviors while eliminating the undesired ones. Cognitive behavioral therapy combines the abovementioned therapies and will be required for more severe conditions. Other types of psychotherapy include dialectical behavior therapy, psychodynamic psychotherapy and pyschoeducation.

Treating personality disorders will need to be holistic. The therapies that were mentioned will need to be done but there will also be the need for support, especially from the family members and friends. If you are not the one affected but a family member of yours is, then you will need to help him in every way that you can. You will need to learn how to recognize the different manifestations and the patterns on how these happen so that you will be able to address the situation properly. If you do not know how to help, psychoeduation is recommended for everyone in your family so that all of you will learn how to help the affected one.

A personality disorder is not cured in just a few days or weeks. It will take a long time before a person finally learns how to adapt well to his environment and the people around him so you have to be patient.