User:Bethpallen/sandbox

Self-defeating personality disorder or also known as masochistic personality disorder is different from the other personality disorders in regards to abnormal sense for attempting to defeat themselves meaning that individuals with the disorder can purposefully put obstacles in their way to deliberately suffer and have the need to fail in many different forms.

Exclusion from DSM-IV

Self-defeating personality disorder is a controversial diagnosis where there has seem to found little empirical research for the classification of the disorder in the American Psychological Association DSM. Multiple researchers have demonstrated through multiple examples on why there should be exclusion of self-defeating personality disorder from the newer edition of the DSM. Some of the reason’s on why self-defeating personality disorder was excluded from the newer editions of the DSM was that there are numerous dangers of the diagnosis as explained in an article by Caplan. Some of which included:
 * 1) The category itself has no claimed treatment effects, because and Caplan states that when patients go to therapy there is a negative therapeutic reaction among the patients in regards to the attempting to stop the inquiry about the nature of the patients’ problems which in result allows the patient to feel more self-defeated, for an overall negative therapy process.
 * 2) The category also rules out abuse victims which is excludes a vast majority of women because as Caplan states that self-defeating itself has chronic psychological abuse but since self-defeating is so common in society that it is not recognized as a form of abuse which is why it should not be excluded in the category of self-defeating personality disorder
 * 3) The diagnosis states that it is not reliable if the patient is also going through depression, even though it is a suitable characteristic for women who also identify themselves as self-defeating because of the similarities between the two.
 * 4) Most importantly there is no evidence that demonstrates that that self-defeating behaviour is valid and should be its own personality disorder rather than coincide some other mental disorder.

Millon’s Subtypes

Along these subtypes, individuals can experience features of other personality disorders alongside the masochistic behaviours but not even to be considered for the diagnosis of the said personality disorders.

The topic chosen for the Personality assignment is Self-defeating personality disorder. For this assignment I will be adding on information to the already small article with the sources listed below:

1. Spitzer, R., Williams, J., Kass, F., Davies, M., National field trial of the DSM-III-R diagnostic criteria for self-defeating personality disorder. (1989). The American Journal of Psychiatry. 146, p. 1561-1567.

2. Ferrari, J. (1994). Dysfunction procrastination and its relationship with self-esteem, interpersonal dependency, and self-defeating behaviours. Elsevier. 17 p 673-679

3. Caplan, P., Gans, M. (1991) Is there empirical justification for the category of self-defeating personality disorder? Feminism & Psychology. 1. 263-278

4. Caplan, P. (1987) The psychiatric association's failure to meet its own standards: the dangers of self-defeating personality disorder as a category. Journal of Personality Disorders 1. 178-182