Home > Encyclopedia of Mental Disorders > Paranoid personality disorder

Definition

People with paranoid personality disorder (PPD) have long-term, widespread and unwarranted suspicions that other people are hostile, threatening or demeaning. These beliefs are steadfastly maintained in the absence of any real supporting evidence. The disorder, whose name comes from the Greek word for "madness," is one of ten personality disordersdescribed in the 2000 edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,(the fourth edition, text revision or DSM-IVTR), the standard guidebook used by mental health professionals to diagnose mental disorders.

Despite the pervasive suspicions they have of others, patients with PPD are not delusional (except in rare, brief instances brought on by