Hello and welcome to the Zero to Finals podcast.

My name is Tom and in this episode I'm going to be talking to you about personality disorders.

But if you want to follow along with written notes on this topic,

you can follow along at Zero tofinals.com slash personality disorders

or in the CAM section of the zero to finals pediatrics book.

So let's get straight into it.

Personality disorder, often abbreviated to PD, is an umbrella term that covers a number of

variations of maladaptive personality traits that cause significant psychosocial distress and

interfere with everyday functioning.

It's characterized by patterns of thought, behavior and emotion that differ from what is

normally expected by society. They lead to difficult relationships, reduced quality of life

and poor physical health.

Personality disorders are thought to be the result of a combination of genetic and environmental factors. Patients often have a history of early childhood trauma and difficult circumstances.

Let's talk about the presentation.

There are a wide range of symptoms and behaviours that can occur with personality disorders.

Patients will vary in the symptoms that they have.

Symptoms can include strong and intense emotions, emotional instability, anger, low self-esteem, impulsive behaviour, substance abuse, poor sense of identity,

difficulty maintaining relationships, risky behaviour such as risky sex, violence and aggression, self-harm and suicide attempts.

Let's talk in more detail about the types of personality disorder. There are many different types of personality disorder. The classification is based on the dominant features of the disorder.

The different types fall under three main categories.

These three categories are anxious, suspicious and emotional or impulsive.

Firstly, let's talk about anxious personality disorders.

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