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Avoidant personality disorder (AvPD), or anxious personality disorder, is a cluster C personality disorder characterized by excessive social anxiety and inhibition, fear of intimacy (despite an intense desire for it), severe feelings of inadequacy and inferiority, and an overreliance on avoidance of feared stimuli (e.g., self-imposed social isolation) as a maladaptive coping method. [1]
An example of the fear-avoidance model, anxiety sensitivity stems from the fear that the symptoms of anxiety will lead to harmful social and physical effects. As a result, the individual delays the situation by avoiding any stimuli related to pain-inducing situations and activities, becoming restricted in normal daily function.
Therapists outline the four different attachment styles—secure, anxious, avoidant, and fearful-avoidant—plus how to identify yours, cope, and change it.
Avoidance coping is measured via a self-reported questionnaire. Initially, the Multidimensional Experiential Avoidance Questionnaire (MEAQ) was used, which is a 62-item questionnaire that assesses experiential avoidance, and thus avoidance coping, by measuring how many avoidant behaviors a person exhibits and how strongly they agree with each statement on a scale of 1–6. [1]
Stonewalling is an unhealthy communication pattern in which one partner refuses to engage during an argument. Experts weigh in why it happens and how to fix it.
Fearful-disorganized people with fearful attachment often avoid routine healthcare, but present in a crisis with volatile, intense, negative emotions. Due to their degree of distress, they can present a disorganized narrative that is difficult for providers to follow and interpret diagnostically.
The fear, anxiety, or avoidance is not attributable to the physiological effects of a substance (e.g., an addictive substance, a medication) or another medical condition. The fear, anxiety, or avoidance is not better explained by the symptoms of another mental disorder, such as panic disorder, body dysmorphic disorder, or autism spectrum disorder.
Dimensional models are intended to reflect what constitutes personality disorder symptomology according to a spectrum, rather than in a dichotomous way.As a result of this they have been used in three key ways; firstly to try to generate more accurate clinical diagnoses, secondly to develop more effective treatments and thirdly to determine the underlying etiology of disorders.