Page 2269 - Saunders Comprehensive Review For NCLEX-RN

traits that may impair functioning and relationships.
2. The client usually remains in touch with reality and
typically has a significant lack of insight in self-
identity and interpersonal behavior (empathy or
intimacy).
3. Stress exacerbates manifestations of the personality
disorder.
4. Not directly associated with the effects of substance
misuse or a general medical condition, such as severe
head injury.
B. Characteristics
1. Poor impulse control
a. Acting out to manage internal pain
b. Forms of acting out include physical
and verbal attacks, such as yelling and
swearing, and self-injurious behaviors,
such as cutting own skin, banging the
head, punching self, manipulation,
substance abuse, promiscuous sexual
behaviors, and suicide attempts.
c. The client may be preoccupied with
such things as self, religion, or sex.
2. Mood characteristics
a. May experience abandonment and
depression
b. Moods may include rage, guilt, fear,
and emptiness.
3. Impaired judgment
a. Difficulty with problem solving
b. Inability to perceive the consequences
of behavior
4. Impaired reality testing: Distortion of reality and often
projection of own feelings onto others
5. Impaired object relations: Rigid and inflexible, with
difficulty in intimate relationships
6. Impaired self-perception: Distorted self-perception
and experience of self-hate or self-idealization
7. Impaired thought processes
a. Concrete or diffuse thinking
b. Difficulty concentrating
c. Impaired memory
8. Impaired stimulus barrier
a. Inability to regulate incoming sensory
stimuli
b. Increased excitability
c. Excessive response to noise and light
d. Poor attention span
e. Agitation

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