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Avoidant personality disorder is a psychological condition characterized by extreme social inhibition and shyness, causing people to avoid social interaction and contact with others. It is not the same as antisocial personality disorder. Symptoms include feeling inadequate or worthless, reluctance to make friends, and extreme sensitivity to other people’s thoughts and actions. Treatment approaches include individual and group therapy, drug therapy, and finding the right therapist and treatment approach.
Avoidant personality disorder, more properly known as avoidant personality disorder (APD) or anxious personality disorder, is a psychological condition characterized by extreme social inhibition and shyness. People suffering from this condition usually feel very uncomfortable in public situations and tend to avoid social interaction and contact with other people. Avoidance disorder is not the same as antisocial personality disorder, in which people flout social rules and norms.
Several criteria can be used to identify avoidance disorder. The first is a tendency to avoid social interaction, often with the understanding that certain things are sacrificed by avoiding contact with other people. Patients also tend to feel inadequate or worthless and are reluctant to make friends or approach people because they fear rejection. Social inhibition is a hallmark of avoidance disorder, as is extreme sensitivity to other people’s thoughts and actions.
When someone with avoidance disorder interacts socially with people, they can seem very shy and withdrawn. The patient often becomes obsessed with evaluating his own behavior, to the point that he rarely speaks or interacts with others for fear of being judged unworthy. Patients also tend to overanalyze the actions of others, inflating innocuous comments into serious character attacks or misinterpreting a statement. Fears of being perceived as socially awkward can unfortunately lead the patient to behave in a socially awkward or inept manner.
Individuals with avoidance disorder usually begin experiencing symptoms as young adults. Sometimes the condition emerges in response to being isolated or alienated from peers, and in other cases it occurs spontaneously. In both cases, the patient may identify as a loner, expressing feelings of alienation and discontent. Avoidance disorder often causes people to live alone and can be combined with things like anxiety disorders or OCD.
There are a number of treatment approaches to avoidance disorder that can be explored with a psychologist, psychiatrist, or other mental health professional. Extensive individual therapy sessions can be combined with group therapy to explore the underlying cause of the disorder and ways in which social anxiety and avoidance might be addressed. Some patients also benefit from the use of drug therapy in combination with other forms of therapy. Sometimes, patients may need to see several therapists before finding an individual and a treatment approach that works.
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