Persoonlijkheidsstoornissen

Full course description

This module deals with one of the biggest problems in mental health, personality disorders. Personality disorders are found in approximately 10% of the adult population and approximately 30-70% of the (poli-)clinical Mental Health Care populations.

A general calculation has shown that the treatment of borderline patients alone costs over 350 million Euros per year. This only concerned the cost of GGZ: clinics for alcohol and drug abuse, TBS/detention institutions, somatic health care (suicides/self-mutilation), and indirect costs (absence from study/work) are not included.

Personality disorders are a group of psychological disorders that cause long-term dysfunctional behaviour and should be ascribed more to the character of the person than to a (temporary) disorder that is not part of the character, as described on clinical disorders of the DSM. It means that the person suffering from a personality disorder considers the feeling, thinking and acting as ‘normal’ and has always considered it normal. The person may perceive some of the effects of the disorder as undesirable, but the basis of his/her dysfunctioning is what is called ‘ego-syntonic’: the person doesn't perceive his/her thoughts, feelings and actions as odd, but rather as something that fits in his/her character. In many cases the people around the person suffer more from the personality disorder than the person in question. Consequently, there is often at first no clear request for personality change. At times clients only start treatment under pressure or force (for instance the law) from their environment.

People suffering from such disorders are generally perceived as untreatable and the term is also abused to refer to very troublesome people. The question is whether this is justified.