Understanding the 10 Most Common Personality Disorders

It can be helpful to learn about personality disorders to better understand yourself or the people in your life. This guide offers a clear, straightforward overview of the 10 most common personality disorders, their key characteristics, and how they are grouped, providing the information you came here to find.

Important: This article is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you are concerned about your own mental health or that of someone else, please consult a qualified healthcare provider.

What Is a Personality Disorder?

Before we explore the specific types, it’s important to understand what a personality disorder is. It’s not just a quirk or a difficult personality trait. A personality disorder is a long-term, inflexible pattern of inner experience and behavior that is significantly different from what is expected in one’s culture. This pattern shows up in at least two of these areas:

  • Thinking (ways of perceiving and interpreting oneself, other people, and events)
  • Feeling (the range, intensity, and appropriateness of emotional response)
  • Interpersonal functioning (how one relates to others)
  • Impulse control

This pattern causes significant distress or impairment in social, work, or other important areas of life. These disorders typically begin in adolescence or early adulthood. Mental health professionals group the 10 most common personality disorders into three categories, or “clusters.”

Cluster A: The Odd or Eccentric Cluster

Individuals with these disorders often appear odd or eccentric. They may have difficulty relating to others and can be withdrawn or suspicious.

1. Paranoid Personality Disorder (PPD)

People with PPD are characterized by a pervasive distrust and suspicion of others. They often interpret the motives of others as intentionally harmful or malicious, even when there is no evidence to support this.

Common signs include:

  • Believing that others are trying to harm, deceive, or exploit them without sufficient basis.
  • Being reluctant to confide in others for fear the information will be used against them.
  • Reading hidden demeaning or threatening meanings into benign remarks or events.
  • Persistently holding grudges and being unforgiving of insults or slights.
  • Frequently suspecting, without justification, that a spouse or partner is unfaithful.

2. Schizoid Personality Disorder

This disorder is marked by a persistent pattern of detachment from social relationships and a restricted range of emotional expression. Individuals with this disorder often prefer to be alone and seem to lack a desire for intimacy or connection.

Common signs include:

  • Consistently choosing solitary activities.
  • Having little, if any, interest in having sexual experiences with another person.
  • Taking pleasure in few, if any, activities.
  • Lacking close friends or confidants other than first-degree relatives.
  • Appearing indifferent to the praise or criticism of others.
  • Showing emotional coldness, detachment, or flattened affect.

3. Schizotypal Personality Disorder

People with schizotypal personality disorder often have peculiar thoughts or behaviors, social anxiety, and difficulty forming close relationships. They may have odd beliefs or magical thinking that influences their behavior.

Common signs include:

  • Odd beliefs or magical thinking inconsistent with cultural norms (e.g., belief in telepathy or a “sixth sense”).
  • Unusual perceptual experiences, such as bodily illusions.
  • Odd thinking and speech (e.g., vague, metaphorical, or stereotyped).
  • Suspiciousness or paranoid ideas.
  • Inappropriate or constricted affect (emotional response).
  • Lack of close friends and excessive social anxiety that doesn’t diminish with familiarity.

Cluster B: The Dramatic, Emotional, or Erratic Cluster

This cluster is characterized by dramatic, overly emotional, or unpredictable thinking or behavior. Interpersonal relationships are often intense and unstable.

4. Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD)

ASPD is characterized by a long-term pattern of disregarding or violating the rights of others. A person with this disorder may not conform to social norms, may repeatedly lie or deceive others, and may act impulsively.

Common signs include:

  • Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors, as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest.
  • Deceitfulness, such as repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure.
  • Impulsivity or failure to plan ahead.
  • Irritability and aggressiveness, often leading to physical fights.
  • Reckless disregard for the safety of self or others.
  • Consistent irresponsibility, such as failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations.
  • Lack of remorse after having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another.

5. Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)

BPD is marked by a pattern of instability in interpersonal relationships, self-image, and emotions, as well as marked impulsivity. Individuals with BPD often experience intense fears of abandonment.

Common signs include:

  • Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.
  • A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships, alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.
  • Unstable self-image or sense of self.
  • Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating).
  • Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, threats, or self-mutilating behavior.
  • Chronic feelings of emptiness.
  • Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger.

6. Histrionic Personality Disorder (HPD)

Individuals with HPD exhibit a pattern of excessive emotionality and attention-seeking. They are often uncomfortable or feel unappreciated when they are not the center of attention.

Common signs include:

  • Needing to be the center of attention.
  • Using physical appearance to draw attention to oneself.
  • Displaying rapidly shifting and shallow expression of emotions.
  • Speech that is excessively impressionistic and lacking in detail.
  • Being easily influenced by others or circumstances.
  • Considering relationships to be more intimate than they actually are.

7. Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD)

NPD is a pattern of grandiosity, a need for admiration, and a lack of empathy. People with this disorder may have an exaggerated sense of self-importance and entitlement.

Common signs include:

  • A grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerating achievements and talents).
  • Being preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, or beauty.
  • Believing that they are “special” and unique and can only be understood by other special people.
  • Requiring excessive admiration.
  • Having a sense of entitlement.
  • Being interpersonally exploitative (taking advantage of others).
  • Lacking empathy and being unwilling to recognize the feelings of others.

Cluster C: The Anxious or Fearful Cluster

This cluster is characterized by anxious, fearful thinking or behavior. Individuals may be socially inhibited, over-cautious, or controlling.

8. Avoidant Personality Disorder

This disorder is characterized by extreme social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, and hypersensitivity to negative evaluation. People with this disorder avoid social situations or work that involves significant interpersonal contact for fear of criticism or rejection.

Common signs include:

  • Avoiding occupational activities that involve significant interpersonal contact due to fears of criticism or rejection.
  • Being unwilling to get involved with people unless certain of being liked.
  • Showing restraint within intimate relationships because of the fear of being shamed or ridiculed.
  • Being preoccupied with being criticized or rejected in social situations.
  • Viewing oneself as socially inept, personally unappealing, or inferior to others.

9. Dependent Personality Disorder (DPD)

DPD is characterized by a pervasive and excessive need to be taken care of, which leads to submissive and clinging behavior and fears of separation.

Common signs include:

  • Having difficulty making everyday decisions without an excessive amount of advice and reassurance from others.
  • Needing others to assume responsibility for most major areas of their life.
  • Having difficulty expressing disagreement with others because of fear of loss of support or approval.
  • Going to excessive lengths to obtain nurturance and support from others.
  • Feeling uncomfortable or helpless when alone because of exaggerated fears of being unable to care for themselves.
  • Urgently seeking another relationship as a source of care and support when a close relationship ends.

10. Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD)

OCPD is a pattern of preoccupation with orderliness, perfectionism, and mental and interpersonal control, at the expense of flexibility, openness, and efficiency. This is not the same as Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD).

Common signs include:

  • Being preoccupied with details, rules, lists, order, or schedules to the extent that the major point of the activity is lost.
  • Showing perfectionism that interferes with task completion (e.g., is unable to complete a project because their own overly strict standards are not met).
  • Being excessively devoted to work and productivity to the exclusion of leisure activities and friendships.
  • Being over-conscientious, scrupulous, and inflexible about matters of morality, ethics, or values.
  • Being reluctant to delegate tasks or to work with others unless they submit to exactly their way of doing things.
  • Adopting a miserly spending style toward both self and others; money is viewed as something to be hoarded for future catastrophes.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between a personality trait and a personality disorder? A personality trait is a consistent part of how you think, feel, and behave. A personality disorder is when these traits become so rigid and inflexible that they cause significant problems and distress in many areas of your life.

Can personality disorders be treated? Yes. While they can be challenging to treat, long-term psychotherapy (talk therapy) is the most effective treatment. In some cases, medication may also be prescribed to help manage specific symptoms like anxiety or depression.

What is the difference between OCPD and OCD? OCD is an anxiety disorder characterized by unwanted, intrusive thoughts (obsessions) and repetitive behaviors (compulsions) performed to reduce anxiety. People with OCD are often distressed by their thoughts. OCPD is a personality disorder focused on a rigid need for order, perfection, and control. People with OCPD often see their way of thinking as the “right way” and are not typically distressed by their own patterns.