Wednesday, August 7, 2013

CASE STUDY - AVOIDANT PERSONALITY DISORDER



Avoidant Personality Disorder – The Fear Of Reaching Out For Help


A mother wanted me to go see her daughter, Angela because she refuses to work, talk to anyone and becoming increasingly withdrawn from even the family members. Instead of bringing her to me, her mother wants me to pay her daughter a visit due to her refusal to venture out.

This situation started when Mark, who recently graduated and wanting to start work. Instead, Angela being a good childhood friend of Mark decided to help start him into a business venture by opening a tuition centre. Angela decided to invest a substantial amount of her personal savings into the setting up of the centre and Mark comes in to work as an active partner without laying out any capital.
Known to both Angela and Mark, was Mark’s godmother. Seeing that such a centre would make a lot of money, the greed and jealousy the godmother led her to manipulate naïve Mark into withdrawing from the partnership by teaching him how to play out Angela. So, after the renovation was completed and the centre was about to start, Mark suddenly broke the news of withdrawing from the partnership to her and it took place in front of the godmother. So that Mark can start it by himself with the support from the godmother instead.

In fact, in front of her, both knowingly lied to her. Even though the situation left the centre without any students or business, it is the betrayal that caused Angela to break down in tears, with anger and developed a deep mistrust with everyone around her. The saddest of this betrayal is that Angela has lost a good friend Mark. She became paranoid, totally losing interest and passion for business – eventually losing a lot of money and was forced to close down the tuition centre. As the emotions deteriorated, she became increasingly depressed, withdrawing herself from everyone and fermenting a lot of anger towards the godmother and Mark. That is due to the fact that Angela had treated Mark’s godmother very well in the beginning, so it becomes very hard to accept that she play the betrayal game. Angela has lost her sense of direction and confidence for some time now and does not know what to do. She had put in all her saving, passion and effort and tried to make her dream come true but unfortunately she was played out by both of whom she trusted so much. From her mother’s story, I assess that she could be suffering from avoidant personality disorder.


Treatment Plan

Treatment of avoidant personality disorder typically involves long-term psychotherapy with a therapist that has experience in treating this kind of personality disorder. Medications may also be prescribed to help with specific troubling and debilitating symptoms. 



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