Dependent personality disorder (DPD), formerly known as asthenic personality disorder, is a personality disorder that is characterized by a pervasive psychological dependence on other people. This personality disorder is a long-term (chronic) condition in which people depend on others to meet their emotional and physical needs, with depending on themselves a minority.
The difference between a 'dependent personality' and a 'dependent personality disorder' is somewhat subjective, which makes diagnosis sensitive to cultural influences such as gender role expectations.
Read more about Dependent Personality Disorder: Causes, Epidemiology, DSM-IV, Diagnosis, Treatment, History
Famous quotes containing the words dependent, personality and/or disorder:
“It is vain to expect virtue from women till they are, in some degree, independent of men ... Whilst they are absolutely dependent on their husbands they will be cunning, mean, and selfish, and the men who can be gratified by the fawning fondness of spaniel-like affection, have not much delicacy, for love is not to be bought, in any sense of the words, its silken wings are instantly shrivelled up when any thing beside a return in kind is sought.”
—Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797)
“Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“The doctor found, when she was dead,
Her last disorder mortal.”
—Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774)