Personality Disorders

We all have different personality traits, and these traits range on a spectrum from low intensity to high intensity throughout different times of our lives.  Our personality traits impact how we think about, relate to, and interact with our own inner experiences, with others, and with our environment.

Personality disorders are seen when our personality traits are extremely rigid and inflexible, are not appropriate given our cultural background and upbringing, impact us across multiple different areas of life, and result in us engaging in unhelpful and maladaptive behaviours which significantly and negatively impact on our lives.  While we all engage in unhelpful and maladaptive behaviours at different points in our lives, these unhelpful and maladaptive behaviours are often able to be traced back to adolescence or early adulthood as a pattern of interacting.

Understanding areas of strength and areas of difficulty when it comes to personality traits and/or personality disorder can be helpful in understanding why we engage in particular behaviours or ways of interacting with others. Through this understanding, we can foster space to grow and develop more effective ways of coping and relating with ourselves, others, and the world around us.