This disparity arises from the immense diversity of human minds and the fact that no two individuals are exactly alike, unlike bodies, which share a substantial degree of structural similarity.
The world of psychiatry based on diagnosing mental illnesses and behavioral disorders is very broad, and we can read daily about diseases that we have not heard of before.
In this article, we will delve as deeply as possible into dependent personality, exploring its causes, symptoms, and treatment. We will discuss this behavioral disorder, attempting to uncover its roots, motives, and manifestations, shedding light on therapeutic approaches.
What Is a Dependent Personality?
Dependent personality, also known as dependent personality disorder, is a behavioral disorder that affects both men and women, though it is more prevalent among women. This disorder is characterized by pathological dependence on others, unhealthy attachment, and a negative interactive connection with the people in one's life. This condition usually begins in childhood, but its real triggers are still a bit incomprehensible.
Together, we will look at the causes of dependent personality disorder and try to find the underlying causes that contribute to this disease.
Causes of Dependency Personality
In a study related to revealing the causes of dependent personality, an American study conducted by several researchers discovered that 67% of cases of dependent personality are based on genetic causes, and the remaining part is related to environmental causes. That is, the environment in which the patient grew up.
Given that the causes of the essential dependent personality are difficult to understand, as mentioned above, the researchers agreed to link it to psychological and social causes. So this disorder arose from genetic, social, biological, and psychological causes at the same time.
Scientists found other reasons related to authoritarian upbringing and education, including excessive intensity during upbringing. Together, we will enumerate the causes of dependent personality that mental health researchers think have a direct impact on the formation of this type of personality.
Among these reasons:
1. Heredity
Heredity is one of the causes of dependent personality. Experts believe that a person whose family history includes dependent personality disorder or other mental disorders is more likely to develop this type of disorder than others. They have an innate predisposition to this disease.
2. Wrong Relationships
Individuals who have gone through wrong relationships with the surrounding environment have a high susceptibility to developing dependent personality disorder. Therefore, unbalanced relationships with different roles in them are among the most important causes of dependent personalities.
3. Family behavior
The reasons for the dependent personality and the possibility of people developing this disorder are enhanced if they are raised in a family that adopts dependent behavior. This is what we can call the wrong cultural behavior of the parents.
4. Excessive pessimism
Researchers suspect that people who are highly pessimistic or who grew up in a family with pessimistic thinking tend to develop dependent personality disorder. Therefore, pessimistic tendencies are among the causes of dependent personalities.
5. Persistent Childhood Disorders
These disorders are a major cause of the dependent personality, which is adopted by the child's subconscious and continues with advancing age.
such as the fear of separation from the family and the unwillingness to be away from them, and a physical illness may affect the dependent personality.
As children get used to special attention and care because of their illness, attachment to attention becomes pathological and causes mental illness.
6. Lack of independence
The lack of independence is also one of the causes of dependent personalities. Scientists have discovered that families that contain individuals with dependent personalities tend to place restrictions on their children and very often reduce the freedom granted to them in a tense manner, and then this family becomes a fertile seedbed for successive infections with this disease.
It should be noted that most people with dependent personalities refuse treatment despite its potential or dispense with treatment because of people around them who make them feel falsely safe and self-satisfied and keep them away from stress and emotion.
Symptoms of Dependent Personality
We can classify individuals with this disorder by observing the symptoms of dependent personality. Most of those struggling are negative people who never decide on the important things in their lives. Rather, they rely heavily on those around them to make fateful decisions on their behalf. They never like to take responsibility, even in a simple way, in most aspects of their lives.
1. Dependency
The adult patient with the dependent personality relies in general on one of the parents, or if they are in a relationship, they rely on the partner even in the silliest matters such as clothes, hair color, and appropriate make-up.
As for those with a dependent personality who are still in adolescence, they depend on the parents absolutely, completely, and in all walks of life without any exception.
2. Extreme difficulty in expressing ideas
Among the symptoms of the dependent personality disorder is that the sufferer finds it very difficult to communicate their ideas, completely avoids heated discussions with others, and is afraid of disagreeing with their opinion even if the opinion put forward is against their personal conviction.
Most of those who fear that they may differ in opinion are people who are counted on in their lives to fill the psychological void caused by a dependent personality disorder.
3. Fear of innovation
Another sign of a dependent personality is a dread of coming up with fresh concepts for work and material creation. They avoid taking on leadership roles that call for having a strong opinion and taking charge.
4. They always express a need for care
In addition to having a dependent personality, they always compromise and carry out tasks outside the scope of their passion and ability. Just in order to receive praise and moral support from others, they always express that they need care, tenderness, and special treatment.
5. A sense of helplessness
Among the most important symptoms of the dependent personality is the feeling of helplessness and tension due to the constant fear of their inability to take care of themselves.
They always experience a feeling of anxiety and dread when they are close to losing a certain relationship with people who provide them with support and care, and they immediately seek to establish and strengthen new relationships in order to secure the care that they think they need, so that they do not care for themselves, as they always seek to fill the voids in their lives that they think are their safe environment.
Dependent Personality Treatment
In the treatment of dependent personalities and other mental and physical disorders and diseases, the methods of dealing are divided into two parts: preventive methods and remedial methods.
Unfortunately, the methods of preventing the development of the dependent personality are limited only to the educational role of the family. It is balanced between providing the necessary support for the child and giving them the freedom to learn how to rely on themselves.
| Most people with dependent personalities refuse treatment despite its potential. |
As for the treatment of dependent personality disorder following diagnosis and disease discovery, it can be broken down into six core aspects. We will mention them without ranking their importance in the article, as each therapeutic aspect holds significance at various stages of treatment:
1. Group therapy
In this method of treating dependent personalities, we note the great importance of treatment groups, which depend on self-support and increase confidence with a group of other patients, in which treatment takes place during specific and studied periods of time.
Bringing together people with dependent personalities and putting their problems in front of each other helps each person get rid of their suffering with dependence and change this lifestyle to positive and effective patterns.
Collective therapy groups help the patient overcome their isolation and get out of the dependent shell in which they have placed themselves. These groups help the patient develop their sense of initiative and give them the courage they lack to make decisions.
2. Pharmacotherapy
The treatment of the dependent personality is done by treating the symptoms resulting from it. Pharmacotherapy is the only effective treatment for the dependent personality, whose attacks of fear, panic, anxiety, tension, and depression are among the most prominent effects in the patient, and then treatment with drugs is a must in order to reduce the severity of these seizures and their accompanying seizures.
It is necessary to be very careful not to infect patients with addiction to these drugs and to rationalize their use. Since the person with the dependent personality depends on these drugs as well as on people, care must be taken that the treatment does not cause the development of the disease.
3. Cognitive-behavioral therapy
This method is considered one of the most successful psychological methods for treating dependent personalities. The purpose behind it is to support affected people in reducing dependence on others in their daily lives, increasing self-esteem and self-love, teaching them the skills required for their daily lives, and supporting them to start being independent and brave to make decisions in isolation from the influence of the environment on them and without seeking their advice.
4. Psychotherapy
This method of treating dependent personalities can be considered a double-edged sword. This is because the psychiatrist must support the patient and provide counseling and advice to them over a long period of time, and within this period they must be careful not to let the patient become attached and not to let them regard the psychiatrist as their only safe haven.
A long period of treatment in this way may cause some side effects, and yet it is considered one of the methods Successful treatment and specialists advise that treatment sessions be intermittent and at spaced intervals, and this is an important step in treatment.
5. Family therapy
The treatment in this way of treating the dependent personality aims to remove the cover from the family bonds and the way of dealing and to reveal the ambiguous matters that may lead to the injury of the dependent personality.
As it is known, the family of the patient is the one who accompanies them to the treatment sessions, and the participation of the spouses in this treatment is of great importance in getting rid of the dependency of one of them on the other and helping the two parties to establish a healthy relationship between them.
6. Personal treatment
It is one of the contemporary approaches to treating dependent personalities. In order for the patient to understand how the disorder has several negative effects and how they always pay for these personality traits that they suffer from, psychiatrists teach patients long-term methods on how to deal with their surroundings and implore them to pay attention to the fact that the way they deal with it leads to developing dependent personalities.
Through this personal method, the doctor treats dependency by helping the patient discover alternative and effective ways to deal with the environment and devise new and effective behavioral methods for a more positive life.
In conclusion
The dependent personality disorder always appears in the childhood. Therefore, close follow-up and successful treatment will lead to making individuals suffering from this disorder normal and active members of society.
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