OVERVIEW
This page is dedicated to organizing various examples of standardized exam questions whose answer is dependent personality disorder. While this may seem a odd practice, it is useful to see multiple examples of how dependent personality disorder will be characterized on standardized exams (namely the boards and the shelf exams). This page is not meant to be used as a tradition question bank (as all of the answers will be the same), however seeing the classic “test” characterization for a disease is quite valuable.
QUESTION EXAMPLES
Question # 1
A 25 year old woman comes to the clinic asking for a prescription for sleep medication. She cries while she explains that she is extremely upset, and has been having difficulty falling asleep since her boyfriend “dumped her”. She says that “I don’t know how I am going to get by without him! I can’t fall asleep because now I realize that I have to take on all my responsibilities without him and don’t know if I can function alone. Before he left me he was helping me look for a new job, but now I don’t know. I can’t think of why he would leave! I always agreed to everything he wanted to do.” The patient states that although she is usually with a boyfriend, she struggles with low self confidence, and fears both abandonment and rejection. Although she is fearful of being alone, she socializes with only a few close friends. She rarely “goes out” anymore as her boyfriend was the one who used to make all of their plans in the past. What is the most likely diagnosis for the patient?
Page Updated: 09.13.2016