{"id":5890,"date":"2017-01-11T17:11:41","date_gmt":"2017-01-11T17:11:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/antrodichirone.com\/?p=5890"},"modified":"2017-01-11T17:11:41","modified_gmt":"2017-01-11T17:11:41","slug":"the-dance-between-two-personality-disorders-a-delicate-relationship-balance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antrodichirone.com\/index.php\/en\/2017\/01\/11\/the-dance-between-two-personality-disorders-a-delicate-relationship-balance\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u201cdance\u201d between two personality disorders: a delicate relationship balance"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Picture by\u00a0Martina Lofrinch<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

Psychologists believe we often choose our partner because we think (s)he has characteristics that could balance and complete ours. We need to make them play a certain role, a function of responding to our most intimate needs. Most times, this is also the role our partner needs to play. According to Monguzzi, beside the previous reasons, we also choose a partner in order to give up on some of our qualities, which are then attributed to the partner. Something like this can happen in those suffering from personality disorders: two people (with different, almost opposite disorders) can feel attracted because of their contrasting characteristics, in a sort of dance balanced by the complementarity of dispositions and roles.<\/p>\n

According to Monguzzi, when forming a couple, we expect the partner to govern our psychological conflicts, to protect us from them. The chosen lover represents the hope to understand and deal with parts of self that we refused and try to integrate.<\/p>\n

In couples of people who suffer from personality disorders, it\u2019s important to remember the disorders are structured and long-lasting ways of thinking and acting, related to genetics, temperament and experiences. They aren\u2019t just traits, they are rigid configurations that revolve around typical inflexible behavior patterns, beliefs, attitudes and expectations, which are constant and hardly modifiable. For example, while an obsessive trait can be adaptive (being a perfectionist can lead to be productive at work), an obsessive-compulsive disorder compromises the sufferer\u2019s functioning in different, so that his life becomes too bonded to certain recurring beliefs and patterns.<\/p>\n

While the PDM (Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual, 2006) identifies 15 personality types (each having different levels of severity), the DSM V (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, APA 2013) organizes 10 disorders in 3 clusters. In the first cluster we can find disorders with odd characteristics, in the second disorders with dramatic characteristics and in the third disorders with anxious characteristics.<\/p>\n

Someone suffering from a personality disorder could feel attraction towards someone with an opposite and complementary personality structure. Scientific literature hasn\u2019t investigated this topic much, but lots of clinicians found it regularly, especially in these three dyads: obsessive-compulsive with histrionic, narcissistic with dependent and narcissistic with borderline.<\/p>\n

The most important characteristics of these disorders are the following:<\/p>\n