In this 90-minute session, we will be given an introductory glimpse into categorical typologies of personality, focusing on the distinction between “normal crazy” and “extra crazy” as seen through the lens of Personality Disorders (PDs). We will explore the 10 empirically validated PDs, categorized into three clusters—A, B, and C—each with its own core excess and deficiency (see below). By utilizing an Integrally informed approach, participants will gain insights into the five key therapeutic focus areas that help clients reduce compulsions, build missing traits, and develop healthier coping mechanisms for long-term emotional regulation.

MEET YOUR HOST:

Dr. Keith Witt is a licensed psychologist, teacher, and author who has lived and worked in Santa Barbara, Ca. for over forty years. He is the founder of The School of Love, where he offers his “School of Love Lecture Series,” “Therapist in the Wild” web series, and “Integral Conversations,” a collection of audios and videos on health, love, relationships, sexuality, spirituality, and development-related topics.

PRE-SESSION READING (provided by Dr. Keith Witt)

Normal Crazy and Extra Crazy are categorical typologies, like masculine sexual essence and feminine sexual essence.

Personality disorders (PD) are a categorical typology of extra crazy (genetically determined, diagnostically identifiable between 3 and 7). They are 15% to 19% of the general population, 30% to 100% of clinical populations.

There are ten empirically validated disorders arranged in three clusters—A, B, and C:

Cluster A:

• Paranoid
• Schizoid
• Schizotypal

Cluster B:

• Anti-social
• Narcissistic
• Borderline
• Histrionic

Cluster C:

• Dependent
• Obsessive compulsive
• Avoidant

An Integrally informed approach expands the five focus points of treatment for PD, making connections and observations is ways that are tolerable to the client. The five focus points of therapy are:

1. Excess: A trait they compulsively enact that you help them reduce.
2. Deficiency: Traits they most lack that you help them increase.
3. Lack of observing ego that you help them develop.
4. Drama: They compulsively create the drama triangle instead of solving problems. Therapists help clients identify and avoid dramas.
5. Problem solving: They don’t have sufficient traits in their psychological toolkit to solve problems instead of create dramas. There is emptiness inside that interferes with a life worth living. Therapists teach clients how to more effectively problem solve.

PDs are low in the Integration-of-defenses line of development, so they need installations of the traits of compassionate self-awareness and self-regulation to states of healthy response. All PDs block these installations in various ways, based upon the core lack (deficiency) and core compulsion (excess) of each type. For instance, borderlines have too much emotional volatility and too little sense of proportionality.

10 types—each with a core excess and a core deficiency.

1. Paranoid: 1.1% (or more) of the general population. Core excess is suspicion. Core deficiency is in trust. Angry bitter loners who view others as malevolent and dangerous.
2. Schizoid: .5% of the general population. Core excess is indifference. Core deficiency is attachment.
3. Schizotypal: 1.8% of population. Core excess is eccentricity. Core deficiency is conformity. Second lowest functioning of all psychiatric disorders.
4. Antisocial personality disorder: 1.1% population. Three times more men than women. 30% forensics. Core excess is exploitation. Core deficiency is honor. Robert Hare says psychopath is a subset having no guilt or remorse (need incarceration).
5. Borderline Personality Disorder: 1.6% of population. Core excess is instability. Core deficiency is in proportionality. Adolf Stern 1930s coined the term.
6. Histrionic: 2% of population. Core excess is expressiveness. Core deficiency is shame.
7. Narcissistic: Less than 1.5% of the population. Core excess is grandiosity. Core deficiency is equality. Bad, good, but never ordinary. Entitlement is the most disabling human quality (most productive is conscientiousness).
8. Avoidant: 1% of the population. Core excess is in timidity. Core deficiency is resilience.
9. Dependent: 2% of the population. Core excess is submissiveness. Core deficiency is independence.
10. Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD): 4% of the population. Core excess is rigidity. Core deficiency is flexibility. Twice as common in men.