What Are the Signs Of Avoidant Personality Disorder?

[Music] you can watch the best parts of this series at Med Circle calm have you ever felt self-conscious or afraid of embarrassing yourself these are common feelings but imagine if these feelings became so persistent that they severely impeded every single social interaction this pattern can be mended through the right education which is what this series provides welcome to the med circle original series avoidant personality disorder finding relief from fear of humiliation clinical psychologist and tonight lady in red doctor Romani is back talking to us about avoidant personality disorder we just finished filming our it was a long series yeah yeah it was like seven or eight episodes or something like that on avoidant personality disorder you wanted to talk about this topic you brought this to med circle why I think it's something people they don't even know what this is about and it's just this time we're like is he shy is he just socially awkward it's one of those patterns where people don't even understand that when it gets to a certain level there actually is not only help probably a need to get that kind of professional intervention to alleviate that suffering so what is avoidant personality disorder it's a pervasive pattern where a person feels very inadequate and anxious in social settings they feel socially inept socially and unskilled and they're very inhibited in social situations are afraid of embarrassing themselves all the time across situations it can be really paralyzing yeah yeah you made it very clear to me when we talked about that this was way more than means self-conscious absolutely that's not what this is yeah this is somebody who's who's not excelling in their career because of this possibly who they're not having fulfilling relationships maybe not even having relationships because they cannot face being around people they're so worried that they're going to embarrass themselves or somebody else yeah a true disorder yes now where does this fall in the cluster analogies this falls into a cluster called C which is characterized by more anxious and frankly avoidant patterns being people who are much more socially anxious socially sensitive who don't have an accurate appraisal of how they appear in social situations and avoidant personality sort of the most common to me one of them our classical diagnosis it's sort of sister diagnosis if you will someone called dependent personality disorder which I also hope we get to talk about on med circle because there's a fair amount of overlap there yeah fantastic we talked about the causes always very interesting with mental health because there's normally not a blood test you can just do but you mentioned that in your experience a lot of people who have a PD avoidant personality disorder had a childhood that had maybe bullying or shaming can you talk a little bit about that yeah when we look at the origins of avoidant personality it's a complex sort of soup of genetics temperament childhood environment particularly childhood environments characterized by shaming by parents shaming by a family system bullying by peers or by siblings as well as things like attachment style and all of that comes together to really heighten the risk of developing an avoidant personality style into adulthood yeah my one of the first takeaways I got from the series is when you talked about what healthy attachment looked like between a mother and a child or a primary caregiver or a primary caregiver yes thank you and it was just a really clear example and I want to share that with our viewers right now so here's an inside look go back to the attachment styles you were mentioning what do those look like so the the critical research on attachment Wood was originally done by Mary Ainsworth and John Bowlby who sort of set the tone for this developmental research years ago and what they did was they found that there are sort of three standard attachment styles the the attachment style we like to see is the secure attachment in a securely attached child they get a little upset when their primary caregiver drops them off somewhere leaves them with a stranger there's a little bit of distress after the caregiver leaves they're able to be soothed pretty quickly by the new caregiver like a day care provider or something and when that primary caregiver comes back to pick them up the child happily reunites with that person okay so it's a sense that I don't like that you're going you've gone and then I'm gonna be okay because you're inside of me and then when you come back I'm happy to see you mm-hmm that's what we're going for that's secure here that parents that's the goal that's the goal that's the goal the anxious attachment style is characterized by the child who when dropped off from the parent becomes very disorganized very chaotic cannot be soothed by the person that they're dropped off to then when the caregiver returns the caregiver can't soothe the child either so they're very they just can't calm down they can't calm down that there's there's this fear and when we sometimes for example on children there's even a pattern we call separation anxiety disorder these are kids that do not soothe well when they're separated from their caregiver one might say well what's the big deal they really love their mom because pretty early on we need a self soothing mechanism that mechanism is that we're like she's gonna be back she's always been back so when when should we have done we should that should pretty much have clicked into place solidly by two to three years of age Oh young I have to tell you as a mom I remember this very very well and I would the blessing of my my daughter both my daughters weren't an amazing childcare facility where there was one-way mirrors I was a hot mess when I had to drop her off so I would stand and watch at the glass I had a little timer you know both my girls they actually suits pretty quickly I'd say within three to five minutes and then when I walked into their baby so they'd either crawl and there was just sunshine I'm like security mother who knew what was going on but just psychologists kids I think everyone but the fact was it was that sense of as a mom you feel that too right you mean he's crying so I had this blessing that I could look in and then I would leave after I saw that they had stopped crying and you said that this type of healthy attachment they should see in a child even as early as two years old correct years old yeah yeah yeah and what does that signify when they have that healthy attachment that secure attachment reflects a consistent caregiver a caregiver who has soothed the child a routine in that child's life a sense of safety of relative predictability and while we often put that onus on the relationship between the caregiver and child there were also factors of temperament in the child that can make that more successful a smiley baby is easier for a parent to connect well and that secure safe attachment style that's a style that's like money in the bank going into adulthood because that creates security in many many relationships throughout a person's life if that was one of three attachment Styles that dr. Romani mentioned if you'd like to learn about the other two feel free to go to med circle com become a member you can access that entire series where she of course talks about those attachment styles now we also went into detail about the diagnostic process finding the right provider and what treatment looked like now with a avoidant personality disorder medications aren't always used unless they're treating a co morbid or co-occurring disorder what are some of those co-occurring disorders that are common with APD co-occurring disorders are co-occurring symptoms things like anxiety that's really overwhelming depressive symptoms in addition keep being mindful of the fact that the person may have also a comorbid substance use disorder like alcohol use disorder or other substance use disorder that would need to be a central core and focus of treatment early on to ensure we can get that client sort of detox clean and sober so they can also focus on the work of therapy and speaking of therapy you brought up group therapy which we don't hear a lot about on med circle but especially when it comes to avoidant personality disorder here's what you say here's the role you say group therapy could play [Music] what kind of treatment we haven't talked about Kyle with avoidant personality disorder that also really bears further consideration is group therapy hmm the beauty of group therapy which ideally is run by two group leaders so that the people in the group can also see what healthy interaction looks like is the chance to practice and model those social skills and dealing without social anxiety in real time with the therapist there it would be it wouldn't be an easy group because everyone would actually be really holding back but I think group therapy is often one of those wonderful therapy models we don't give enough attention to it's often very cost effective it can be a lot more affordable but it gives you real time opportunities to practice those social skills which can be very important in something like avoidant personality disorder whereas person says oh my gosh I feel like I'm being criticized you can actually ask that other person are you judging the partial let's say actually no I'm in awe of the smart thing that they just said and it can and it doesn't feel fake it's a real person to a real person what I love is that there is so much hope for somebody with avoidant personality disorder they can go from here to here they can improve their lives there's a lot of options for them and in your experience do you find that your patients improve they do improve again like I've always said you're not going from here to life-of-the-party you're going here to being able to take a few more social risks to maybe talking to a few more strangers to being able to talk about your vulnerabilities in close relationships I think it's important to have realistic expectations so definitely we can see progress but there's work involved in that it can feel like an uphill climb but it's definitely not impossible what will viewers get after watching this series I think that this series is an introduction to a pattern avoidant personality sort of while not common also has lots of sub parts to it that they know people experience them that are causing some distress yeah in their lives and so I think understanding this pattern understanding ways to manage this pattern how to talk to loved ones about it or even for themselves to understand that this this could be a worthy reason to start therapy and that their fear of being embarrassed or look bad socially could inhibit them from even going into therapy my hope is that we open that door for these folks to say maybe there is something I can turn this around maybe I don't need to feel the sense of loneliness isolation anymore so I do hope it gives people who are experiencing this or people close to people who are experiencing this some sense of hope as well well and it gives them hope but it gives them actionable steps that they can do within this series we first defined the disorder and help you recognize the signs then dr. Romney goes in depth to talk about the causes of avoidant personality disorder she then discusses the diagnostic process what that looks like what questions your therapist where provider could ask you number four how to fight how to find the right provider it is difficult but she gives you some tried-and-true advice on finding someone who is the right fit for you then she goes over your treatment options not just if it's medication or therapy but what kind of therapy and how to track that progress throughout your recovery long-term management strategies she gives some great ones there and of course helps the supporters and arms them with the tools that they need to be the best supporter not an enabler there's a difference being a supporter of somebody that they know with a PD any final words on this series and what you want viewers to know before they watch I think that when we see certain personality styles that are associated with patterns we may not value as a society like being shy or maybe even somewhat introverted that those patterns there's nothing unhealthy about those yeah that I think some people may see this and say well I'm shy does that mean have a disorder no right right here this shy you're just shy enough that's okay that's just it's anything it's like being stubborn or friendly or you know it's any of that it's just a pattern it's who you are I think that that avoidant personality is really where the person really be rates themselves it's a sense of absolute social embarrassment and in him never even taking a social chance for that's really holds people back and I want people to understand some of those differences and understand these patterns because we do tend to over pathologize people again who aren't overly extroverted and understand that it's not a disorder to be introverted yeah but that when you feel socially so embarrassed that's when it's an issue well said dr. Rama D I'm Kyle Kittleson and remember whatever you're going through you got this thanks for watching your next step is to go to med circle comm and finish watching this series there you can also access other series and get actionable advice and simple explanations continue your mental health journey at Med circle calm and I'll see you there [Music]

Channel: MedCircle

Views: 346,248

Keywords: fear, humiliation, emotions, relationships, inspiration, insecure, self help, help, how to, agoraphobia, social, anxiety, avoidant, personality, disorder, personality disorder, can, series, show, self, news, mcgraw, daytime, dr phil, phil, drphil, illness, dr phil full episodes, dr. phil, doctors, talk, host, dr., psychologist, mental, tv, therapy, family, medcircle, kyle kittleson, dr. ramani, dr ramani, self conscious, health, mental health, APD, mental illness, interview, discussion, youtube, video

Id: ujj4ZUmBYlc

Length: 13min 57sec (837 seconds)

Published: Tue May 07 2019