Anankastic personality disorder is classified as a personality disorder in which the dominant feature is excessive perfectionism. People with anankastic personality find it difficult to find themselves in imperfect reality, among people who are disordered, act spontaneously, and go beyond the correct norms. Anankastic personality means living in constant tension, uncertainty, and sometimes fear. Learn about the symptoms, causes and methods of treating an anankastic personality.

Anankastic personality at first glancemeans only advantages - perfectionism, ambition, conscientiousness, thrift and caution. However, their advantages cease to be when they start to exceed the limits of normality and become overdone.

Contents:

  1. What is an anankastic personality?
  2. Causes of Anankastic Personality
  3. Anankastic personality symptoms
  4. Anankastic personality treatment

What is an anankastic personality?

Anankastic personality disorder is a personality disorder included in the list of mental diseases (International Classification of Diseases ICD-10) and mental disorders of the American Psychiatric Association DSM-IV. This disease entity is diagnosed on the basis of the presence of characteristic symptoms.

The dominant features of these disorders are the need to achieve perfectionism and a sense of guilt and control. Everything together can be frustrating and make you angry, which the person tries to suppress inside himself.

It makes people with anankastic disorders live under pressure that they impose on themselves, thus lowering the quality of life. Ananancists are strongly focused on action and work, they are less involved in emotional life. They lack distance to work and duties, and are unable to act spontaneously.

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Causes of Anankastic Personality

Anankastic personality disorder affects approximately 2 percent of the population. Although both women and men suffer from personality disorders, more men than women struggle with this problem (Psychological Medicine, February 1999, conducted byCarter, Mulder, Sullivan, and Joyce).

Biological substrate

One of the causes of the disorder is the biological background (genes). The disorder may also be caused by neurobiological factors, i.e. dysfunctions of the dopaminergic system or abnormalities in the functioning of the brain, more precisely - problems in the connections between the orbitofrontal cortex, cingulate gyrus and caudate nucleus.

Brain Injury

Disorders (anankastic personality) can also occur as a result of brain damage. The cause of anankastic personality symptoms may be epilepsy or Tourette's syndrome. Any head injury that damages specific areas of the brain can be to blame.

Childhood experiences

Another source of disorders is childhood experiences. An anankastic personality can be influenced by the way a person was raised. Disorders are favored by, among others high parental control, too high expectations of the child and subjecting him to constant evaluation.

A 2000 study by Millon, Davis, Escovar and Meagher found that ananacastic personality often characterized individuals who received a lot of punishment from their caregivers during their childhood for various offenses. The parents of these children were restrained in showing emotions, but at the same time very demanding, strict and overprotective.

Due to the repetition of punishments, a child brought up in this way tries to adapt to the rules instilled in him by his parent and begins to control himself very much. In adulthood, this habit turns into compulsiveness.

Temperament

One should also pay attention to the psychological reasons for the formation of anankastic personality. Among other things, a person's temperament may be influenced by their susceptibility to disorders. Anankastic personality can also be a specific human defense mechanism, facilitating the masking of emotions created as a result of an internal conflict.

On the one hand, such a person is in control at every step, wants to meet the requirements of authorities and obey them, and on the other hand, they want to rebel. So a person masks his feelings and refrains from going beyond the scheme, because he is afraid of the consequences. At this point, various obsessions appear that distract the patient's attention from the problem. Behaviors typical of anankastic personality appear, which seemingly give the patient the impression of control and power over their own life.

Anankastic personality symptoms

  • Striving for perfection, perfection- anankasta wants to act perfectly at all costs, in accordance with socially accepted norms and requirements imposed by her life (work, school,household duties). He does not allow disorder around himself, pedantry wins no matter what the situation, everything must be as well organized and arranged as possible, and there is no place for chaos in life.
  • Great caution, uncertainty- the overwhelming feeling is eternal doubt and lack of conviction about the rightness of one's actions. An anankastic person has a problem with making important decisions because he is afraid of their consequences. As a result, he looks to the future with uncertainty, experiences catastrophic visions and avoids risks even more.
  • Meticulousness- anankasta focuses on details and things unimportant to others. Unfinished details bother him. A person with ananancastic personality attaches great importance to regulations and patterns, because they can only act according to them. He cares when he is unable to cope with them, fearing the consequences.
  • Excessive conscientiousness- such a person attaches great importance to every duty or task entrusted to him. She is very meticulous, consistent, committed and strongly focused on the effects of her work. Work often prefers human relations. Such a person cannot rest, exhibits features of workaholism.
  • Rigid moral principles- an anankastic person sticks to their moral principles very consistently, is not flexible. He stubbornly defends his arguments.
  • OCD- May be one of the symptoms of this personality disorder, but not necessarily. It occurs when a person is haunted by an internal need to repeat certain behaviors over and over again from which he cannot free himself.
  • Exaggerated rationalization- there is no room for spontaneous action and emotions in the life of an anankastic person. Feelings must be justified, they are always rational and suppressed. Nothing happens on the spur of the moment or impulse. Such people are very careful not to get carried away by carelessness, they also put relationships with their partner and their loved ones in a rigid framework.
  • Difficulty expressing feelings- Although anankastic people do get into relationships, they usually have enormous problems to open up and show their feelings. They also cannot react to the feelings of others.
  • Excessive economy- even the stinginess of such a person. Anankasta has a problem sharing money with others. This does not only apply to money, because it is similarly difficult for her, for example, throwing away unnecessary things. An anankastic person is haunted by catastrophic visions, hence e.g. excessive accumulation of money and items for a rainy day.

Anankastic personality treatment

Psychotherapy

Anankastic disorders can be cured. The most effective method of treating an anankastic personality is psychotherapy. Anankastic disorders are most often treated with behavioral techniques based on response prevention, exposure, and modeling.

The problem, however, is that people with such disorders usually do not want help. They do not consider their features as a symptom of disorders, believe that there is nothing strange in their behavior, they do not want to change it. And without their consent, it is impossible to conduct treatment with a psychotherapist, which is why most often people try to mobilize patients to self-therapy, i.e. work on themselves.

Its aim is to familiarize a person with his personality traits and their source, and then to try to change the schematic behavior (reaction) to a more spontaneous one.

Self-therapy involves fighting perfectionism, meticulousness and indecision. The therapy requires a lot of self-denial from the patient and the belief that it can improve his quality of life. In therapy, it is about lowering the "standards" of one's conduct, e.g. by omitting some (until now obligatory) steps performed in a given activity.

It is about making the patient aware that a task well done does not have to be done perfectly and that just doing it is able to satisfy others. The way to achieve balance in decisions is also to focus on achieving your goal in everything you do.

This is to help the patient to focus on the most important thing, without caring for details that are not related to the job. Self-therapy is also supposed to help fight indecision.

For this, the patient needs to define time limits to make any decision. The limit should always apply and be adjusted to the severity of the problem. It is important to realize that making a decision faster does not necessarily mean a wrong choice.

You cannot try to change the anankasta by force, because these will be ineffective, and the only thing that can be achieved is to spoil the relationship with the patient.

Support for loved ones

The support of the environment is of great importance in the treatment of anankastic personality disorder. The task of the relatives is to make the sick person aware of the presence of the disorder and to present their chances to improve the quality of life.

Often times, people who live in relationships or close relationships with people with an anankastic personality simply need to accept these disorders if they are concerned about maintaining the relationship. It's a kind of sacrifice for love or friendship. Unfortunately, until the sick person understands his problem and makes up his mindto help, the only correct attitude is to support and stick to such a person.

Anankastic personality disorder is rarely treated with medication. The exceptions are when the disorders are so severe that they greatly deteriorate your mood and increase the risk of depression, or you have obsessive thoughts or fears that interfere with normal functioning. In such cases, modern antidepressants are most often used.

Category:

Psychiatry