Avoidant Personality Disorder | The Signs

[Music] hi i'm dr romini and you can watch my series on avoidant personality disorder by hitting those links below i'm here to talk about signs of an avoidant personality style now avoidant personality in some ways can be thought of as a much more pervasive consistent and potentially severe social anxiety people with avoidant personality and it's a sort of an unfortunately named personality style people with avoidant personality don't necessarily want to avoid people they actually value social interaction but they bring the social interactions bring up so much anxiety because there's a fear of criticism of being rejected of being embarrassed or humiliated or being sort of judged or disapproved by other people as a result one sign we see in people who have avoided personality is that they may avoid engaging in any kind of activity socially in the workplace meeting new people that carries that risk of of being criticized or rejected people with with avoidant personality styles aren't asocial they actually do socialize but they tend to socialize in very small groups so another sign we'll see is that it's not that the avoidant person doesn't socialize or doesn't have friends but they tend to keep a rather small and tight social group only staying within the social group within which they are familiar maybe friends they've had for a long time family members and there's a real reluctance and i should say fear of meeting new people because of that fear of criticism disapproval and rejection people who have avoided personality also hold back in intimate relationships so they will be for example very afraid to share about themselves because they're afraid of being made fun of that what they're sharing will be humiliating or embarrassing so one sign we'd see is that a person who gets into a relationship with someone with an avoidant personality might find they're not learning a lot about this person or if anything the person with the avoidant personality may just sort of keep going along with whatever they say and agree and actually ask a lot about the other person but not share that much about themselves and what's driving that again is sort of that fear of being of being rejected people with avoidant personality also like any anxious person they kind of get stuck in a rumination and a preoccupation of being rejected so imagine a person with avoidant personality is about to go go to a bar with friends which would already be a stretch for them or go to a networking event there will be a lot of time spent even ahead of that ruminating about what's going to go wrong i don't want to say the wrong thing and even while in the event will very much be in their head about okay i got to compose my sentence i have to make eye contact i have to not say the wrong thing and there'll be so much anxiety in fact many people that avoid him personality will say my face will turn red i'll start sweating and they're just so afraid of being ridiculed or rejected in any kind of social setting and another sign we see is that people who have avoidant personalities are very inhibited when they get into a new social situation so they'll be very quiet they may sort of stay be you know sort of stay stand back they may sort of you know kind of nod and smile and go along and in this way there's sometimes a vulnerability for people who have avoided personality styles similar to what we see in people who are socially anxious that in social situations there may be a propensity or a risk for example for wanting to drink so that they feel more socially disinhibited because their natural tendency is to be quite inhibited in those situations and in those settings a person with avoidant personality let me tell you this right now they ain't gonna do karaoke because there's no there's very it's very uncomfortable for a person with an avoidant personality to think about doing something where they may embarrass themselves like doing karaoke or doing something like that's in front of other people where they may embarrass themselves or they think they'll look silly even though they won't they'd be very reluctant for example maybe to give a toast or a speech at a wedding or other social event with the fear being not that they think that they don't have anything to say but that they will be made fun of and that they will embarrass themselves there's a risk for people with avoidant personality in some ways because again a person with avoidant personality is not disinterested in social relationships they're actually interested they do want to meet people they do want to be with people the anxiety and the rumination about looking foolish or hum becoming humiliated or criticized or embarrassed inhibits them but there's a risk that they'll sort of give in in a close personal relationship several years ago in in my research lab we had done some research and one thing we found for example is that people with avoidant personality styles were more likely to engage in sexual practices that were more unsafe you know not protecting themselves with new partners and it was very interesting to us because we thought that we'd see that with more dysregulated personality styles but one thing that seemed to be happening was folks with avoidant personalities would simply give in and not even advocate for themselves because they wanted they wanted to be in something but they didn't want to say something in a situation for fear of being criticized or embarrassed so there's a potential risk in that but there's also for a person with an avoidant personality there can be so many lost opportunities there's a person may be very very capable but may hold off on for example advocating from themselves in the workplace or putting themselves up for a promotion of some kind especially if that promotion may require them to be more heavily scrutinized so there's a risk for people with avoidant personalities to get stuck in situations that probably aren't at the level of their actual abilities because the anxiety and the fear of criticism and all of that holds them back so when i've seen avoidant personality styles in my practice it's always a little bit difficult to discern with whether i'm dealing with a social anxiety or an avoidant personality and in some ways i've got to be honest with you it doesn't really matter the approach is sort of similar it's really with avoidant personality styles it's much more consistent and it's really about doing sort of successive approximations using cognitive behavioral techniques to sort of help the person have a more realistic appraisal of what's happening in a social situation and then start taking small like little baby steps in terms of social risks that a person will take paying attention to how they feel in their body take you know and then in almost journaling about it and then talking about it in therapy and then leveling up but one thing we also want to keep in mind too is that when we look at any personality style we'd want to know what came before it and sometimes people who have avoidant personality styles we may sometimes see childhoods where there might have been bullying trauma or even sort of shame or humiliation used as a tool of sort of discipline and control in the family they grew up in so part of the therapeutic work also becomes about sort of them understanding how those patterns are still affecting them as adults hi i'm dr romini and you can watch my series on avoidant personality disorder by hitting those links below [Music] thanks for watching check out the links below for more information on how to access this full series and subscribe to our youtube channel to watch new mental health videos every week did you like what you heard in this video if you want to ask a med circle doctor a question directly you can learn how by visiting the links in the description below

Channel: MedCircle

Views: 404,526

Keywords: apd, avoidant, avoidant personality disorder, avoidant personality disorder symptoms, avoidant personality disorder treatment, avpd, borderline, detachment, discussion, disorder, dr ramani, interview, kyle kittleson, loner, medcircle, mental health, mental illness, personality, personality disorder, personality disorders, psychology, ramani, ramani durvasula, schizoid personality disorder, schizotypal, schizotypal personality disorder, signs, social anxiety, symptoms, traits, video, youtube

Id: 11HigmoLcnM

Length: 7min 50sec (470 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 04 2022