What causes Self-defeating personality disorder?

Answer 1

ANSWER 1 :This has been defined also as masochistic personality disorder and, according to the website, Healthy Place, "the person harbors guilt. It could be an 'ancient' guilt, a 'sexual' guilt (Freud), or a 'social' guilt. In early life, he internalized and introjected voices of meaningful others - parents, authority figures, peers - that consistently and convincingly and from positions of authority informed him that he is no good, guilty, deserving of punishment or retaliation, or corrupt." Hope this helped some. :)

ANSWER 2 : This is a difficult question to answer as there are different theories on the cause of a self defeating personality and no one size fits all. But firstly as this is a merger of different questions asked may I clarify what the term "self defeating personality" means. It is a very bizarre condition meaning a person (of either gender) who tries or acts the part of being a failure sometimes throughout his or her life at the expense of other people's success.

Although the term was excluded from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), published by the American Psychiatric Association (apparently for irresponsible political reasons advocated by feminist extremists), I have certainly encountered people who have this personality disorder. It can take various forms and the individual with a self defeating personality disorder is often quite intelligent but very introverted often a loner. Yet he or she may appear to others to be stupid and/or workshy when in reality is neither, bit bizarrely gains pleasure from being thought of as such.

It is generally theorised that, as with any Personality disorder, this one too is caused by a combination of the person's genetic and environmental influences on their way of thinking during their life. Their genes apparently make them vulnerable to developing a personality disorder, and then a life situation brings about the actual development. In this case the individual develops a very low opinion or hatred of themself from personal experiences in adolescence.

In some cases the cause can apparently be through having a subconscious desire for power over others and a desire to bully, but being unable to achieve that over others, the desire gets turned inwards and so him or her self becomes the target for their bullying and disciplining for their own mistakes and shortcomings in life.

With some. what they tend to do throughout their life is to seek out or latch on to people and/or situations that bring them disappointment, failure, or result in cruel treatment. These may be work related or socially related or partner related.

Others seem to get solo deviant sexual excitement which may be secret to themself from being humiliated or being seen to be inferior or on punishment. In many cases he or she tries to render ineffective any attempt by others to help them, which is why treatment is very often unsuccessful. But people with this personality disorder do not generally seek treatment and seem to generally have an often unfounded low opinion of themselves, genuinely believing they really do deserve to be punished because of their own personal failings. They are in truth their own worst enemy. In some cases they may take the blame and get themself punished for somebody else's mistake or offence, for which they are personally totally innocent.

A key part of their personality in some cases seems to be secret enjoyment of making others feel successful or happy in tandem with their own perceived failure or unhappiness. For example I encountered a guy at sea who often challenged others to play Chess for a financial bet. While he was really perfectly capable of thrashing his opponent(s) what he used to do in a game was get on top but then make one or more secretly deliberate mistakes. He would try to place his queen in such a position relative to his king so that his opponent could use his knight to check him and then be able to take his queen with next move; then use other such ploys if needed to so that the opponent ended up winning and taking all his money off him and feeling good about humiliating his opponent.

In some cases the person will habitually reject opportunities for pleasure, and is unwilling to acknowledge enjoying him or her self although in reality having considerable capacity for pleasure. But paradoxically their subconscious interpretation of success is being successful in achieving self failure.

This apparently weird or irrational behaviour pattern during their life may be mild acute or chronic and may or may not occur exclusively either in response to, or in anticipation of him or her being physically, sexually, or psychologically abused by another or others.