Avoidant Personality Disorder Causes and Risk Factors Having another mental health condition like depression or anxiety. A family history of depression, anxiety, or personality disorders. Childhood abuse, trauma, or neglect. Trauma including suffering an extreme incident of ridicule or rejection in childhood.
It is a chronic disorder that affects both men and women equally. The disorder can develop in childhood, and symptoms have been detected in children as young as 2 years old. However, like other personality disorders, avoidant personality disorder is typically only diagnosed in adults.
Researchers suggest that there are early childhood experiences that contribute to avoidant behaviors and personality disorders. These are not necessarily causes but may increase the risk of developing AVPD. A major factor in early childhood that may shape personality and lead to AVPD is parental interaction.
People diagnosed with Avoidant Personality Disorder report high rates of childhood physical and emotional abuse, which can disrupt healthy psychological development and impair your ability to form healthy, strong attachments while simultaneously causing you to internalize criticism and shaming.
Like other personality disorders, however, AVPD is currently thought to be a chronic, lifelong condition that cannot be cured. However, symptoms can be managed and reduced, and quality of life improved, with the help of psychotherapy.
Because of this emotional distancing, they tend to be less empathic toward people in need (Joireman, Needham, & Cummings, 2001; Wayment, 2006). Further, avoidant people tend to respond negatively to their partner's emotions because those emotions can signal that they need more attention and intimacy.
Studies have found that avoidant attachers are less likely to date or seek relationships. In other words, they are more prone to having smaller social circles and, thus, may stay single for longer periods of time. Avoidant attachers are thus more susceptible to social loneliness and isolation.
Avoidant attachment develops when an infant or young child has a parent or caregiver who is consistently emotionally unavailable or unresponsive to their needs. Infants with an avoidant attachment style may also have faced repeated discouragement from crying or expressing outward emotion.
Parents who are strict and emotionally distant, do not tolerate the expression of feelings, and expect their child to be independent and tough might raise children with an avoidant attachment style.
The anxious-avoidant attachment style is often due to trauma that includes physical abuse, chaotic or scary environments, and/or inconsistent care. This can help explain why they are both attracted to and fearful of closeness.
Avoidant personality disorder is characterized by feelings of extreme social inhibition, inadequacy, and sensitivity to negative criticism and rejection. Yet the symptoms involve more than simply being shy or socially awkward.
Symptoms and Causes
However, it's believed that both genetics and environment play a role. It's also believed that avoidant personality disorder may be passed down in families through genes, but this hasn't yet been proven. Environmental factors, particularly in childhood, do play an important role.
Avoidance provides temporary relief from anxiety, shame, and other uncomfortable feelings. This is a form of emotional control, and controlling thoughts and feelings can have unintended consequences.
A dismissive-avoidant person cannot form supportive relationships. They are not comfortable providing support to friends or romantic partners and they feel less obligated to do so. Their view of those who seek support is that they are dependent, weak, emotionally unstable, and immature.
For avoidant personality disorder, some of the most prominent risk factors include: Brain abnormalities. People with avoidant personality disorder experience intense bursts of anxiety, which are connected to neurological deficiencies in areas of the brain involved in stress response and emotional control.
Avoidants are not all narcissists but they do have an ability to detach emotionally from the relationship which triggers an “anxious” person's attachment anxiety.
At which point, the avoidant party undergoes a complete seachange. Their greatest fear, that of being engulfed in love, disappears at a stroke and reveals something that is normally utterly submerged in their character: a fear of being abandoned.
The avoidant personality seems to desire affection and acceptance, but doesn't know how to fully experience or obtain it. Symptoms of Avoidant Personality Disorder includes: Avoids activities that include contact with others because of fear of criticism, rejection, or feelings of inadequacy.
Those with fearful-avoidant attachments want love from others. They may even crave that affection. But, at the same time, they are reluctant to have close or intimate relationships. This is a unique combination of anxiously craving affection and avoiding it at any cost.
Parents of children with an avoidant attachment tend to be emotionally unavailable or unresponsive to them a good deal of the time. They disregard or ignore their children's needs, and can be especially rejecting when their child is hurt or sick.
Avoidant partners tend to talk more about independence rather than closeness, freedom rather than intimacy, and self-reliance rather than interdependence. They fear clingy people or being seen as clingy themselves. Avoidant or unavailable partners tend to believe they can only depend on themselves.
Avoidants are unlikely to talk much about their inner selves, especially with a virtual stranger. Overall, they'll reveal little and, consciously or not, communicate that they really don't need a partner. Anxious people will tend to disclose too much too soon—well before the other person is ready for closeness.
Children develop this dismissive avoidant attachment type as a response to lack of closeness with a parent, thus protecting themselves from being hurt or rejected. In friendships, this attachment type may be reserved and may have many acquaintances, but few close friendships.
According to Schumann and Orehek, avoidant individuals were less likely to offer a comprehensive apology. Instead, they were defensive, prone to justify their behavior, blame the other person and make excuses.
For this reason, and the fact that they find emotional closeness difficult, avoidant adults may be more likely to have a lot of friends rather than a few close ones. Avoidant attachers are often the life and soul of the party due to their elevated confidence and high self-esteem.