It’s difficult to pin down exactly what we mean by the word ‘personality’. It seems obvious when we use it in everyday conversations, but it is hard to define. We generally refer to personality types, characteristics and traits as a way of describing ourselves and other people. In mental health, the word ‘personality’ refers to the collection of characteristics and traits that we have developed as we have grown up and which make each of us an individual. These include attitudes, values, desires, wishes, ways of thinking, feelings, and behaviours. The general consensus is that our personality is reasonably stable and consistent but with occasional fluctuations and sufficient flexibility to adapt to different situations, demands, and roles.

You may find it difficult to make and keep close relationships. Alternatively, you might become overly reliant and dependent on others with whom you share a close relationship. You might find it hard to get on with people at work or school. There may be regular conflicts with friends and family and you may find listening to others difficult. It can become hard to understand yourself and manage your feelings, thoughts and behaviour. You may frequently find yourself in trouble and feel like you are doing the wrong thing or making the wrong choices. If you have a personality disorder life is often a lot more chaotic and you may often feel especially isolated.

You are more likely to have other mental health problems such as anxiety or depression. You may find it difficult to trust yourself and others, have emotional outbursts, or act impulsively. It is not uncommon to rely on unhelpful behaviour patterns. Patterns can be self-harm, substance misuse and other addictive behaviours to cope with a personality disorder.

Personality disorders are a complex range of disorders therefore we can only give a brief description as guidance here. You need to discuss your concerns with a psychiatrist or psychologist. The practitioner needs to be specialised in this area before coming to a conclusion about your own or another person’s personality based difficulties.

The essential features of a personality disorder are struggles in personality both in terms of how you understand yourself and your identity and extensive interpersonal difficulties. In order to be diagnosed with a personality disorder, you need to experience significant impairments in how you see yourself and your capacity for self-direction. There tends to be a pattern of broken, intense, sometimes controlling and conflictual relationships. Alternatively, there can also be a notable absence of intimate relationships. There is likely to be evidence of a cluster of problematic personality traits. These can include risk-taking, impulsive, compulsive, anxious disposition, depressive responses, avoidance of intimacy, empathy issues, unusual cognitive and perceptual experiences, lack of insight and rigidity.

In addition, these clusters of traits need to be relatively stable across time and consistent across situations. That is to say that they may not be better explained as a natural result of the individual’s developmental stage or socio-cultural environment. Finally, it is important that the difficulties are not solely due to the direct physiological effects of substance misuse or a general medical condition (e.g. head injury or trauma).