<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Personality disorders are among the most intriguing and fascinating mental disorders. As they are characterized by pathological traits, not signs and symptoms, they are unsuitable for treatment with psychotropic drugs or other biological treatments.A psychological understanding of these disorders is possible based on cognitive or psycho-dynamic explanations but the author argues that these theoretical models miss the essential point, as they Jack a foundational ground on what is specifically human in human beings, their <italic>humanitas.</italic> Any deviation from this ground might lead to the so called de-humanization of medicine or other clinical disciplines.This paper proposes an existential understanding of personality disorders grounded on the being of man. A clinical practice oriented towards the phenomenological method conceives human beings as an “opening of meaning” where the entities of the world can show themselves. The “opening” however is structured and if one revealed content (for instance a biographical event) is misunderstood as a structural component that might generate a set of interrelated pathological personality traits.A clinical case is presented to illustrate this process.</abstract>

Personality disorders are among the most intriguing and fascinating mental disorders. As they are characterized by pathological traits, not signs and symptoms, they are unsuitable for treatment with psychotropic drugs or other biological treatments.A psychological understanding of these disorders is possible based on cognitive or psycho-dynamic explanations but the author argues that these theoretical models miss the essential point, as they Jack a foundational ground on what is specifically human in human beings, their humanitas. Any deviation from this ground might lead to the so called de-humanization of medicine or other clinical disciplines.This paper proposes an existential understanding of personality disorders grounded on the being of man. A clinical practice oriented towards the phenomenological method conceives human beings as an “opening of meaning” where the entities of the world can show themselves. The “opening” however is structured and if one revealed content (for instance a biographical event) is misunderstood as a structural component that might generate a set of interrelated pathological personality traits.A clinical case is presented to illustrate this process.

Fenomenologia Clínica das Perturbaçoes da Personalidade

Phainomenon

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

{"article-title":"Fenomenologia Clínica das Perturbaçoes da Personalidade"}

Personality disorders are among the most intriguing and fascinating mental disorders. As they are characterized by pathological traits, not signs and symptoms,...

Fenomenologia Clínica das Perturbaçoes da Personalidade

Published Online: Oct 19, 2021

Page range: 235 - 246

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/phainomenon-2008-0025

© 2008 Victor Amorim Rodrigues, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.