Personality Disorder

Personality disorders are enduring patterns of inner experience and behavior — across thinking, feeling, interpersonal functioning, and impulse control — that deviate significantly from cultural expectations, are inflexible and pervasive, cause si…

Understanding Personality Disorders

Personality disorders are enduring patterns of inner experience and behavior — across thinking, feeling, interpersonal functioning, and impulse control — that deviate significantly from cultural expectations, are inflexible and pervasive, cause significant distress or impairment, and are stable across time and context. The "personality" in personality disorder refers to the fact that these patterns are deeply embedded in a person's characteristic way of experiencing and engaging with the world — they are not simply symptoms that appear during acute episodes and remit between them.

At LC Psych, personality disorders are approached without the stigma and pessimism that has historically surrounded them. Personality disorders are treatable — with the right evidence-based approaches, tailored to the specific condition and the individual, meaningful and lasting change is genuinely achievable. People with personality disorders are not their diagnosis; they are whole, complex, valuable human beings whose patterns of suffering have usually developed in the context of difficult histories and understandable attempts to cope with profound pain. The therapy room at LC Psych is a place where that complexity is honored and where change is pursued with hope, skill, and deep respect.

Conditions We Treat

LC Psych provides treatment for a range of personality disorder presentations. Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) — characterized by intense emotional dysregulation, unstable relationships, an unstable sense of self, impulsive behavior, and chronic emptiness — is the personality disorder with the strongest evidence base for specific psychological treatment, and DBT-informed therapy is the primary evidence-based approach used. Avoidant Personality Disorder, characterized by pervasive social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, and extreme sensitivity to negative evaluation, is treated with CBT and social exposure approaches that overlap with those used for social anxiety disorder.

Dependent Personality Disorder, characterized by excessive reliance on others for emotional support and decision-making, is addressed through approaches that build autonomy, assertiveness, and a stable internal identity. Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD) — distinct from OCD — involves perfectionism, rigidity, excessive preoccupation with order and control, and difficulty delegating, and is addressed through CBT approaches targeting the underlying beliefs and fears that drive these patterns. Other personality disorder presentations are addressed with individualized treatment planning drawing from the evidence base relevant to each condition.

Our Therapeutic Approach

DBT-informed individual therapy is the primary treatment modality for Borderline Personality Disorder at LC Psych, drawing from the comprehensive DBT approach developed by Dr. Marsha Linehan. DBT skills across the four modules — mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotional regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness — provide a rich toolkit for individuals whose primary struggles involve intense and rapidly shifting emotions, interpersonal crises, and self-destructive coping patterns. The validation and change balance that is central to DBT creates a therapeutic relationship that is both deeply accepting and actively skills-focused.

Schema Therapy, developed by Dr. Jeffrey Young, is used for personality disorder presentations where early maladaptive schemas — core beliefs and patterns of experience that develop in childhood in response to unmet needs — are the central organizing factor. Schema Therapy addresses these deep-rooted patterns through a combination of cognitive, behavioral, and experiential techniques that create genuine change at the level of the schema itself, not just the surface symptoms. Treatment for personality disorders tends to be longer-term than treatment for many other conditions — reflecting both the depth of the patterns being addressed and the profound nature of the change that is possible.

What to Expect in Sessions

Personality disorder treatment at LC Psych begins with a comprehensive clinical assessment that establishes an accurate diagnostic picture and identifies the specific patterns — emotional, cognitive, interpersonal — that will be the focus of treatment. Your therapist will be honest about what treatment can offer and what it will require from you, because effective personality disorder treatment is an active, engaged process that asks a great deal of both the client and the therapist. It is also a process that can produce genuinely profound and lasting change — changes not just in symptoms but in one's fundamental experience of oneself and the world.

The therapeutic relationship in personality disorder treatment is itself a central vehicle of change — providing a consistent, boundaried, warm, and genuine human relationship that models and creates new relational experiences that can gradually revise deeply held internal working models of self and others. Your therapist at LC Psych will bring both clinical expertise and genuine commitment to this relationship, understanding that the work of personality disorder treatment is among the most meaningful that therapy has to offer.

Getting Started at LC Psych

If you have struggled with patterns of emotional intensity, relational difficulty, or self-destructive behavior that no previous treatment has fully addressed, personality disorder-informed therapy at LC Psych may offer the deeper-level change you have been looking for. To schedule an appointment, call 859-525-4911 or visit lcpsych.com. Real change is possible — and you deserve the opportunity to experience it.