Personality Disorder Clusters: A, B, C

Personality disorders in DSM-5 are categorised into three clusters based on their descriptive similarities:

1. Cluster A (Odd, Eccentric)
   • Paranoid Personality Disorder: Characterised by a pervasive distrust and suspiciousness of others such that their motives are interpreted as malevolent.
     • Diagnostic Criteria: Includes suspecting, without sufficient basis, that others are exploiting, harming, or deceiving them; preoccupation with unjustified doubts about the loyalty or trustworthiness of friends; reluctance to confide in others; interpreting benign remarks as threatening; persistently bearing grudges; perceiving attacks on character and quick to react angrily.
   • Schizoid Personality Disorder: Marked by a pattern of detachment from social relationships and a restricted range of emotional expression.
     • Diagnostic Criteria: Includes neither desiring nor enjoying close relationships; choosing solitary activities; little interest in sexual experiences; taking pleasure in few activities; lacking close friends; appearing indifferent to praise or criticism; showing emotional coldness, detachment, or flattened affectivity.
   • Schizotypal Personality Disorder: Characterised by acute discomfort in close relationships, cognitive or perceptual distortions, and eccentricities of behaviour.
     • Diagnostic Criteria: Includes ideas of reference; odd beliefs or magical thinking influencing behaviour; unusual perceptual experiences; odd thinking and speech; suspiciousness or paranoid ideation; inappropriate or constricted affect; behaviour or appearance that is odd, eccentric, or peculiar; lack of close friends; excessive social anxiety.
2. Cluster B (Dramatic, Emotional, Erratic)
   • Antisocial Personality Disorder: A pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others.
     • Diagnostic Criteria: Includes failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviours; deceitfulness; impulsivity; irritability and aggressiveness; reckless disregard for the safety of self or others; consistent irresponsibility; lack of remorse.
   • Borderline Personality Disorder: Pervasive pattern of instability in interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity.
     • Diagnostic Criteria: Includes efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment; unstable and intense interpersonal relationships; identity disturbance; impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging; recurrent suicidal behaviour; affective instability; chronic feelings of emptiness; inappropriate, intense anger; transient, stress-related paranoid ideation.
   • Histrionic Personality Disorder: Characterised by a pattern of excessive emotionality and attention-seeking.
     • Diagnostic Criteria: Includes being uncomfortable in situations in which they are not the centre of attention; interaction with others characterised by inappropriate sexually seductive or provocative behaviour; rapidly shifting and shallow expression of emotions; using physical appearance to draw attention to self; speech that is excessively impressionistic and lacking in detail; self-dramatization, theatricality, and exaggerated expression of emotion; suggestible; considering relationships to be more intimate than they actually are.
   • Narcissistic Personality Disorder: A pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy.
     • Diagnostic Criteria: Includes a grandiose sense of self-importance; preoccupations with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance; belief of being “special”; requiring excessive admiration; sense of entitlement; interpersonally exploitative behaviour; lack of empathy; envy of others or belief that others are envious of them; arrogant, haughty behaviours or attitudes.
3. Cluster C (Anxious, Fearful)
   • Avoidant Personality Disorder: Characterised by social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, and hypersensitivity to negative evaluation.
     • Diagnostic Criteria: Includes avoiding occupational activities that involve significant interpersonal contact; unwilling to get involved with people unless certain of being liked; restraint within intimate relationships; preoccupation with being criticised or rejected; inhibited in new interpersonal situations; views self as socially inept, personally unappealing, or inferior; unusually reluctant to take personal risks or to engage in any new activities.
   • Dependent Personality Disorder: A pervasive and excessive need to be taken care of that leads to submissive and clinging behaviour and fears of separation.
     • Diagnostic Criteria: Includes difficulty making everyday decisions without an excessive amount of advice; needing others to assume responsibility for most major areas of their life; difficulty expressing disagreement; difficulty initiating projects or doing things on their own; going to excessive lengths to obtain nurturance and support from others; feeling uncomfortable or helpless when alone; urgently seeking another relationship as a source of care and support when a close relationship ends; unrealistically preoccupied with fears of being left to take care of themselves.
   • Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (not to be confused with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder): Characterised by a preoccupation with orderliness, perfectionism, and mental and interpersonal control, at the expense of flexibility, openness, and efficiency.
     • Diagnostic Criteria: Includes preoccupation with details, rules, lists, order, organisation, or schedules; perfectionism that interferes with task completion; excessive devotion to work and productivity to the exclusion of leisure activities; over-conscientiousness and inflexibility about matters of morality, ethics, or values; inability to discard worn-out or worthless objects; reluctance to delegate tasks; miserly spending style; rigidity and stubbornness.

These categories help mental health professionals diagnose and treat personality disorders. It’s important to note that these are general criteria and actual diagnosis should be made by qualified professionals through thorough assessment.