What is Avoidant Personality Disorder? (AVPD)

This video describes Avoidant Personality Disorder (AVPD). Avoidant Personality Disorder is characterized by fear of social situations, social inhibition, panic attacks, isolation, low self-esteem, low self-confidence, and feelings of inferiority.
Avoidant personality disorder is a cluster C personality disorder (anxious fearful cluster). In that same cluster there is dependent personality disorder and obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. Avoidant personality disorder, like any personality disorder, is usually thought of as long lasting and pervasive. If we look at the symptom criteria for avoidant personality disorder from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) we see a number of potential symptoms. The first is that an individual avoids an occupation because of a risk of rejection. The second symptom criterion is the individual does not want to get in relationships unless there's a certainty that they'll be liked. The third symptom criterion is individual has difficulty forming intimate relationships. This symptom really refers to the fact that they have difficulty oftentimes with that. It's not about a desire for intimate relationships, but rather the actual ability to form them. The next symptom criterion is a preoccupation with being criticized. Next is difficulty forming new relationships. An individual could have an inhibition when trying to form a new relationship. The next criterion is a feeling of being inept or inferior. The last symptom cried is the individual does not take risks because of fear of embarrassment. If we look at avoidant personality disorder we see that somebody would generally isolates because of a fear of criticism, rejection, and possibly because of embarrassment. When we think of this personality disorder, we think there's excessive monitoring of an individual's internal reactions. An individual with this disorder is often thinking about how other people are viewing them and thinking about how they could be being criticized, embarrassed, or rejected. This excessive monitoring leads to difficulties in forming and maintaining relationships.
Avoidant personality disorder has comorbidity with other mental health disorders. Comorbidity means is it tends to co-occur with other disorders. Just because avoidant personality disorder is comorbid with any particular disorder doesn't mean that they'll always appear together. It simply means there's an elevated risk that they'll come occur. Comorbid disorders include other personality disorders from cluster C (dependent an obsessive compulsive), anxiety disorders posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and substance use disorders.
Possible etiological factors for avoidant personality disorder include genetics, trauma, physical abuse, and neglect. Lower levels of the expression of parental love and pride, parental intolerance, and guilt-engendering parental behavior are also associated with the development of avoidant personality disorder. A trait named behavioral inhibition is associated with avoidant personality disorder. Behavioral inhibition includes shyness, avoiding new experiences, avoiding strangers, and increased sensitivity and anxiety reactivity. Behavioral inhibition is a temperamental factor that is largely thought of as genetic.
One theory of why neglect and abuse and behavioral inhibition appear to be tied to the development of avoidant personality disorder is that the neglect and emotional abuse caused feelings of worthlessness. A person can feel that they are re not worthy of being loved because of the way they were treated. they don't see others as safe or supportive as they grow up so they tend to develop feelings of mistrust. This mistrust can be viewed as arrogant and it can make other people not want to interact with that individual. This leads to increased isolation, which leads back to a lower level of trust. There is a cycle that gets started with the abuse and the neglect and carries on into adolescence and adulthood.