Personality Disorders – testing and assessment

Are you concerned if your understanding of others, conflicts and “the world” is disturbed? We can help test and assess if your perception can be characterised by a personality disorder.

A persoanlity disorder significantly impacts your overall well-being, relationships, and everyday life. By considering a professional assessment – and diagnosis – you’re opening the door to better understanding yourself and accessing the support you may need.

Even if an assessment of your personality do not display character traits to the extend of fulfilling a personality disorder an assessment will give you an understanding of tendencies. It will inform how interpret and react to events relative to others. For example you be more hostile, naïve, paranoid, mistrusting compared with others.

It is important to highlight that testing of personality disorders is identifying traits or tendencies. While sometimes the trait does match the environment in an meaningful – for example, if a stranger asks for money, it may be useful to be more suspicious and even paranoid about their intentions. However, if the same trait shows up situations with a partner, friends and colleagues it may be uncalled for and create distance and unwanted conflicts. Thus, a personality disorder makes it hard to interpret and distinguish different situations because of the dominance or pervasiveness of the underlying trait.

Testing and psychotherapy can help individuals with personality disorders become aware and build more meaningful interactions with others.

Process of screening of Personality Disorders

1. Contact Us: Write a brief message with your concern
2. Testing of personality disorder: If it – based on your concern – makes sense to screen for personality disorder you will be sent online test material and we also schedule a consultation for feedback and review
3. Feedback & Review: A face-to-face or online session where we will try and understand the test results relative to your history, experienced challenges and how you can use the information moving forward.

If you would like a screening for personality disorder feel free to contact us.

What are Personality Disorders

Personality disorders are a group of mental health conditions characterized by enduring patterns of behavior, cognition, and inner experience that deviate significantly from the expectations of an individual’s culture. These patterns are inflexible and pervasive, leading to distress or impairment in personal, social, and occupational situations.

Cluster A: Odd or Eccentric Disorders

Paranoid Personality Disorder

Key Characteristics: Distrust and suspicion of others, interpreting others’ motives as malevolent.

Symptoms: Reluctance to confide in others, holding grudges, perceiving attacks on character not apparent to others.

Schizoid Personality Disorder

Key Characteristics: Detachment from social relationships, restricted range of emotional expression.

Symptoms: Preference for solitude, indifference to praise or criticism, emotional coldness.

Schizotypal Personality Disorder

Key Characteristics: Acute discomfort in close relationships, cognitive or perceptual distortions, eccentric behavior.

Symptoms: Odd beliefs or magical thinking, unusual perceptual experiences, social anxiety.

Cluster B: Dramatic, Emotional, or Erratic Disorders

Antisocial Personality Disorder

Key Characteristics: Disregard for and violation of the rights of others.

Symptoms: Deceitfulness, impulsivity, irritability, aggression, lack of remorse.

Borderline Personality Disorder

Key Characteristics: Instability in interpersonal relationships, self-image, and emotions.

Symptoms: Intense fear of abandonment, impulsive behaviors, chronic feelings of emptiness, self-harm.

Histrionic Personality Disorder

Key Characteristics: Excessive emotionality and attention-seeking behavior.

Symptoms: Constantly seeking approval or reassurance, rapidly shifting emotions, being easily influenced by others.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Key Characteristics: Grandiosity, need for admiration, lack of empathy.

Symptoms: Exaggerated sense of self-importance, fantasies of unlimited success and power, sense of entitlement.

Cluster C: Anxious or Fearful Disorders

Avoidant Personality Disorder

Key Characteristics: Social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, hypersensitivity to negative evaluation.

Symptoms: Avoiding occupational activities involving significant interpersonal contact, reluctance to take personal risks.

Dependent Personality Disorder

Key Characteristics: Excessive need to be taken care of, leading to submissive and clinging behavior.

Symptoms: Difficulty making decisions without reassurance, fear of being left to fend for oneself, urgently seeking new relationships when one ends.

Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder

Key Characteristics: Preoccupation with orderliness, perfectionism, and control.

Symptoms: Excessive devotion to work, inability to discard worn-out objects, reluctance to delegate tasks.

Professional Help and Assessment

Understanding these disorders can lead to more informed decisions about your health and well-being, paving the way for a more rich and meaningful life.

The above review provides an introductory and limited understanding of personality disorders. If you want to know if you fulfil the criteria of having a disorder one of our clinical psychologist can offer a precise diagnosis and assessment.

We also offer treatment and help you cope with the change process.