Diagnostic Criteria for Immature Personality Disorder

The fundamental characteristic of the Immature Personality is infantilism, which is when the psychological age of the individual is notably less than the chronological one.

In adults who suffer this personality disorder, psychological traits and processes of infancy remain present.

These people have little or erroneous self-awareness; in addition, they are unclear about their own intentions, which stems from a lack of developed identity and well-defined, realistic life goals. They tend to escape reality through imagination, to a fantasy world where they their unsatisfied desires are fulfilled. This contributes to their remaining disoriented in the medium and long-term, with no direction in their lives. Just like children they are impatient and capricious, requiring instant gratification. They have trouble tolerating short-term difficulties in order to obtain long-term benefits, so they act almost exclusively on instinct or current trends, without taking into account the consequences of their behavior.

Emotionally somewhat unstable, they suffer frequent up and downs in mood, set off by insignificant events. They have an emotional fragility that makes them move easily from laughter to tears. They tend to idealize sooner than most people; they might be overly influenced by outside opinions, or by those of someone who at a given moment they adopt as a role model - what we commonly call lack of character. These characteristics result in an utter lack of independence, which makes it difficult for these people to develop sufficiently. They are, therefore, like children, but with the age of adults.

Diagnostic Criteria for the Immature Personality:

1 - Disparity between the chronological and mental age.

2 - Lack of self-awareness.

3 - Emotional Instability.

4 - Little or no sense of responsibility.

5 - Limited or distorted view of reality.

6 - Absence of life goals (love, education, career).

7 - Lack of emotional maturity.

8 - Lack of intellectual maturity.

9 - Little or no self-control.

10 - Lack of firm moral values and ethics.

By Carlos Cabezas López