Avoidant personality disorder
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
Related e |
Featured: |
[edit]
Signs and symptoms
People with AvPD are preoccupied with their own shortcomings and form relationships with others only if they believe they will not be rejected. Loss and rejection are so painful that these individuals will choose to be lonely rather than risk trying to connect with others.
- Hypersensitivity to criticism or rejection
- Self-imposed social isolation
- Extreme shyness or social anxiety in social situations, though feels a strong desire for close relationships
- Avoids physical contact because it has been associated with an unpleasant or painful stimulus
- Avoids interpersonal relationships
- Feelings of inadequacy
- Severe low self-esteem
- Self-loathing
- Mistrust of others
- Emotional distancing related to intimacy
- Highly self-conscious
- Self-critical about their problems relating to others
- Problems in occupational functioning
- Lonely self-perception
- Feeling inferior to others
- In some more extreme cases-- Agoraphobia
- Utilizes fantasy as a form of escapism and to interrupt painful thoughts
- Susceptibility to substance abuse as a way of escapism.
Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Avoidant personality disorder" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.