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The exact cause of avoidant personality disorder isn't known. However, it's believed that both genetics and environment play a role. It's also believed that avoidant personality disorder may be passed down in families through genes, but this hasn't yet been proven.
Avoidant Personality Disorder Causes and Risk Factors
Having another mental health condition like depression or anxiety. A family history of depression, anxiety, or personality disorders. Childhood abuse, trauma, or neglect. Trauma including suffering an extreme incident of ridicule or rejection in childhood.
Avoidance is typically considered a maladaptive behavioral response to excessive fear and anxiety, leading to the maintenance of anxiety disorders. Exposure is a core element of cognitive-behavioral therapy for anxiety disorders.
late 14c., "action of emptying," from avoid + -ance. The sense of "action of dodging or shunning" is recorded from early 15c.; it also meant "action of making legally invalid" (1620s), and, of an office, etc., "becoming vacant" (mid-15c.).
Avoidance is a core symptom of PTSD, with at least one avoidance symptom required for a diagnosis. People often try to cope with the trauma by avoiding distressing memories, thoughts, or feelings associated with the event.
A socially challenged person with a hypersensitivity to rejection and constant feelings of inadequacy may have a mental illness known as avoidant personality disorder (AVPD). People with avoidant personality disorder experience social awkwardness.
Avoidance is a typical trauma response. It is a coping mechanism that you may use to reduce the adverse effects of trauma, such as distressing thoughts and feelings. It is entirely natural to want to not think about a traumatic event or your emotions related to it.
In psychology, avoidance coping is a coping mechanism and form of experiential avoidance. It is characterized by a person's efforts, conscious or unconscious, to avoid dealing with a stressor in order to protect oneself from the difficulties the stressor presents.
For instance, avoidant personality disorder is more common in people who are anxious and tend toward depression. Parental emotional neglect certainly can play a part in exacerbating these issues, and sexual and physical abuse also can give rise to the disorder.
High levels of avoidance
They fear closeness to their partners and avoid them because of the possibility of rejection. They don't feel comfortable getting close to others. What is this? Avoidant adults worry about being hurt if they become too close to others.
Avoidance behaviors are any behaviors people use to escape or distract themselves from difficult thoughts, feelings, and situations. This can look like avoiding new job opportunities, career advancements, relationships, social situations, recreational activities, and family get-togethers.
Can avoidant personality disorder be cured? Because AVPD is an understudied condition, it is not as well understood as other mental health disorders. Like other personality disorders, however, AVPD is currently thought to be a chronic, lifelong condition that cannot be cured.
One of the major symptoms of ADD/ADHD is the avoidance cycle. Poor access to specific brain functions result in difficulty performing tasks that are dependent upon these brain functions and this difficulty will generate stress when trying to perform these tasks, often resulting in avoidance behaviors.
Avoidance coping involves cognitive and behavioral efforts oriented toward denying, minimizing, or otherwise avoiding dealing directly with stressful demands and is closely linked to distress and depression (Cronkite & Moos, 1995; Penley, Tomaka, & Wiebe, 2002).
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is characterized by heightened avoidance, cognitive inflexibility, and impaired reward processing.
Symptoms of avoidance may include: Trying to avoid thinking or talking about the traumatic event. Avoiding places, activities or people that remind you of the traumatic event.
Often, avoidance is one of the key components of depression.
Some avoidant personality disorder symptoms can get worse when left untreated. Avoiding others may continue to seem like the only safe way to cope with intensifying fears of rejection and disapproval. Even work and everyday errands might become so overwhelming that you end up isolating yourself completely.
Sertraline (Zoloft)
Zoloft and other SSRI medications are considered first-line treatment for APD and social phobia.