Avoidant personality disorder (AVPD) is among various personality disorders which are related to mental disorders. To begin, avoidant personality disorder is characterized by marked avoidance of social circumstances as well as close individual relationships fueled by an extreme fear of rejection by other people. Children exhibiting this strange disorder tend to show feelings of low self-esteem, inadequacy and unnecessary mistrust toward others. Another factor causing the same is the fear of negative evaluation or even ridicule. Children who have been diagnosed with AVPD are said to have the desire of being in relationships with other children, only that they lack the requisite confidence and skills that are meant to enable them to survive in social interactions. As a means of protecting themselves from expected ridicule and criticism, they resort to withdrawing from other people. This kind of avoidance of interaction often isolates them from significant relationships, whereby it drives them to behave awkwardly and nervously in better social situations.
The Behavior of AVPD
The behavior of children bearing AVPD is characterized by emotional distance, distrustfulness, shyness, and withdrawal. As they grow up, these children start being cautious whenever they speak, whereby they express a general impression of clumsiness in their conduct. Some become highly self-critical and self-conscious regarding their challenges whenever they relate with others. Drawing from its name, the major coping mechanism of children with AVPD is avoidance of feared stimuli. AVPD is often first noticed in early childhood where there is childhood emotional neglect. It could be receiving of negative feedback of a toddler by their parents, as well as rejection from their peer group which increasingly lead to the development of a syndrome of feeling rejected. Some few scientists claim that parents of such children tend to have at least, once in their lives, experienced increased difficulty with their negative emotions, and this escalates down to their children.
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Children with this syndrome tend to choose activities that are private to themselves, with a view to avoiding to interact with others so that they may not embarrass themselves right in front of others. Some may even go to the extent of fantasizing about affectionate and idealized relationships as a strong desire to belong. In the long run, they develop feelings of being unworthy and unimportant about some of the relationships they hold with others, thus prompting them to evade the idea of ever forming any relationships, leave alone the ones they already have. Such children tend to focus more and magnify any shortcomings in their bodies or ability to perform. With time, they find themselves in a situation where they form relationships with the rest of the children on a condition that they would not be exposed to any form of rejection. Social rejection and loss are so painful to these children that they would prefer to be alone instead of connecting with their peers. This character easily places them among the psychological distinct group of introverts, even when in real sense they are not introverts. They would constantly perceive their own lives with contempt; often holding on to the painful memories of the past and some of the experiences which they consider to have been shameful and this forms a string of items that lingeringly haunts them. They always judge themselves very harshly to an extent that they see their colleagues as more successful than them. This aspect of seeing others better than them is something that should be countered with lots of advice and initiating of a positive mental attitude in them, using whichever method possible for reinforcement ( Hoeksema, 2014) .
The Root Causes of AVPD
The cause of AVPD is not vividly defined, rather, it is a combination of the influence of biological, genetic, and social factors. According to Cooper, Heron & Heward (2007) , avoidant personality traits are dominantly seen in early childhood. The child will start showing symptoms of excessive fear and shyness the moment they confront new situations and people. Situations people encounter in their earlier stages of life (when they are still innocent and naïve) have a greater role in their lives when they have grown. The aftermath of the behavior, personality, and character of an older person is a reflection of what they have been encountering all along since their childhood. Most astounding, however, is the fact that some of the AVPD behavioral syndromes were developed long time when someone was growing up. It would have been better if the parents, guardians or teachers identified any undesirable characters and promptly corrected them. This bespeaks of the greater role of parents and caregivers to their children that they should constantly monitor and regulate the environment in which these children grow up. It is also imperative that every child be exposed to the right people who will not instigate fear into these children, but on the contrary, who nurture these children in the right way, and in case there is detection of anything wrong, these people would immediately rectify the situation with a lot of caution to avoid planting injurious fear into them ( Sperry, 2003) .
How to Diagnose AVPD
It is a commonplace observation that many children exhibit some avoidant behaviors during their stages of growth. Normally, occasional feelings of fear and self-doubt in new and unfamiliar personal and social relationships are unusual. They are also not health because these situations are bound to trigger occasional feelings of insufficiency and that the desire to hide from social contact, especially from self-confident persons. The well-known avoidant characteristics are normally perceived as meeting the analytical benchmarks for a personality disorder the moment they begin posing a longer negative impact on the victim child. It could lead to functional impairment by substantially modifying the child’s and their home lifestyle. The quality of life of such a child could be impaired and would trigger significant emotional distress ( Cooper, Heron & Heward, 2007) .
The diagnosis of personality disorders starts with knowing a comprehensive medical history of a patient, and then a thorough interview with the patient. Since there might be not lab tests for personality disorders, a physician involved is bound to give the patient a physical examination designed at ruling out the possibility that a general medical condition is likely to affect the behavior of the patient. Just in case the interview from the patient suggests that there is need of having a diagnosis of avoidant personality disorder, the physician involved will recommend an administration of a diagnostic questionnaire combined with any assessment as deemed fit. Some of the assessment tools useful in the diagnosis process of AVPD include: Thematic Apperception Test, Rorschach and Psychodiagnostic Test.
Treatments of AVPD
The aim of conducting treatment in AVPD is to improve the child’s (victim’s) confidence and self-esteem. While the victim’s social skills and self-confidence improve, they will become more resilient to real or potential criticism by their peers. The best therapy is psycho-dynamically oriented therapy which is not only treating but supporting the victimized child. The therapist empathizes with the child’s strong sense of inadequacy and shame as a means of creating a relationship founded on trust. The therapy will work slowly during the initial phases because the child with AVPD is known to be mistrustful of others. Importantly, a treatment that probes into their inner emotional condition will quickly trigger the situation of a more protective withdrawal by the child. While establishing trust and making the child feel safer will likely make them draw significant connections between their sense of shame and their consequent behavior in certain social circumstances. Another helpful therapy includes group therapy which provides the child with social experiences meant at exposing them to feedback from others in a safer and controlled environment. Though they may be hesitant at entering the group therapy because of the fear of social rejection fear, a vigorous environment existent in the group setting is likely to assist each person in the group to overcome his/her social anxieties ( Sperry, 2003) .
How to Assist the AVPD Children
Imparting the teaching of social skills to AVPD children is recommendable. Mostly, these children can be identified best from a school setup. Here, education experts consent that this practice is beneficial not only to these children alone but their peers and the entire school as well. It would be a bad picture if the AVPD children are not taught well how to socialize well in the classroom, with their peers, and school setup, and are constantly resented and unloved by their classmates. It is important to note that, since they require special needs and care, the way in which they behave towards others can determine the extent to which they will be handled by their fellow colleagues. It is quite impossible for teachers to surround and be closer to AVPD children at all times, and mostly, they would be in the company of other children. Their peers should be encouraged consistently to benefit from their classroom experiences with their AVPD counterparts. Correspondingly, they should develop compassion for AVPD children . This is beneficial it would greatly boost the self-esteem of AVPD children ( Hoeksema, 2014) .
On the part of teachers in school and elder siblings in the home setup, they are required to constantly oversee social interactions by providing an appreciated support and giving them explicit social rules and strengthening positive social connections. It is the responsibility of the teacher to recognize that an AVPD child has the innate capability and desire to interact and socialize but unfortunately, may not know how best to do that. It would be prudent for teachers of these children to respond by assisting them to alter conversational topics as deemed necessary, using their fellow peers as closest peer models, and sometimes giving these AVPD children guidance “scripts” of what they ought to do whenever they encounter particular social situations.
References
Cooper, J. O., Heron, T. E., & Heward, W. L. (2007) Applied behavior analysis (2nd ed.).Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Hoeksema, Nolen (2014). Abnormal Psychology (6th ed.). McGraw Education. p. 275.
Sperry, Len (2003). "Avoidant Personality Disorder". Handbook of diagnosis and treatment of DSM-IV-TR personality disorders . Philadelphia: Brunner-Routledge. pp. 59–79.
