Cluster A: Odd and Eccentric (Nursing)

00:01 So let's think about that Cluster A, the odd and eccentric personality disorders.

00:09 That includes paranoid.

00:12 It includes schizoid.

00:15 And it also includes schizotypal.

00:18 You might think to yourself, hmm, but a person who has schizophrenia might have paranoia, or might be somewhat schizoid.

00:28 It's important for us to also think about the words that we use.

00:33 We're nurses.

00:35 These are words that are used specifically for people who are going through a very difficult emotional experience.

00:45 To be paranoid, to have paranoia, to have a schizoid personality disorder, or to have a schizotypal personality disorder.

00:56 Remember, this person is no longer functioning on a thriving part of that continuum of mental health. They are living in crisis.

01:06 And so we want to make sure that we are going to be there to help them.

01:11 If you remember our safe stamp.

01:14 We want to keep the person safe and in safe surroundings.

01:18 We want to make sure we're assessing what is going on, in the present moment.

01:23 We want to focus on the individual who is in front of us.

01:27 And we want to evaluate.

01:29 Evaluate whether what they're doing is helping them or hurting them, and evaluate whether our interaction is therapeutic, and is moving them on that continuum back to well being.

01:41 So the symptoms of a person who has Cluster A personality disorders.

01:47 We might see odd or unusual behaviors from them.

01:51 We might see them being very suspicious.

01:54 A level of suspicious that is going to impair their social interactions with others.

02:01 And that is really important to understand that even with you, as the nurse who they've never met before, a person with Cluster A might believe that there is part of you that has gone and found out who they are already, and that you are there to hurt them.

02:19 You want to make sure also that you understand that people have Cluster A in their behavioral composition, the way they think, because now it's affecting their thinking.

02:32 They may have magical thinking.

02:34 And what is magical thinking? Magical thinking is believing that hope and wishing are real courses of action.

02:44 For the rest of us we know to hope something happens or to wish something happens.

02:49 That's not a course of action.

02:50 We actually have to engage.

02:53 For a person with Cluster A, they might have that magical thinking that just wishing something away will work.

03:01 Unfortunately, because of the cognitive impairment that they have, it's really difficult for them to understand on a very abstract level, how we're going to help them? So you may want to be concrete with your patients who have Cluster A personality disorders.

03:20 You want to go slowly.

03:22 You want to take them with you, step by step so that there is a level of trust that you are building with them.