Addicts to protest and lawsuits: what is the querulant personality

We explain what the querulant personality is and what the most common manifestations are A querulant person is to justice and rights the same as a hypochondriac person to illnesses If this trait appears excessively and persistently, it is probably an effect of the Paranoid personality disorder Querulant personality sounds like Chinese in our language. “Sounds like a person with emotional ups and downs,” commented a colleague in the newsroom… which only reinforced my interest in writing about this topic. The term “querulante” comes from the Latin “querulus” which means “complaining”. The complaining person complains because he feels offended easily, which manifests itself, at the behavioral level, in an exaggerated tendency to protest and sue. A complaining person is to justice and rights the same as a hypochondriac person to the diseases. If a hypochondriac sees diseases where there are none, a plaintiff sees injustices and violations of her rights where there are none. A well-known personality in the field of law Therefore, it makes sense that the complainant is a fairly well-known type of person in the field of law. According to José María Torras Coll, associate professor of Procedural Law at Pompeu Fabra University, in Barcelona, ​​the complaining personality speaks to us of “subjects who believe they are being the object of a conspiracy, deception, that they are spied on, followed, poisoned, maliciously slandered , persecuted or obstructed in the achievement of their long-term goals”. Therefore, the quarrelsome personality will compulsively induce and cause “judicial litigation, which is unnecessary in that it lacks a real basis.” In his article, Torras Coll presents this illustrative example: “An individual files a lawsuit; the Court of Instruction inadmits the complaint for processing; the plaintiff makes two successive appeals against said Order, which are dismissed the remedies for reform and appeal; raises an incident of nullity of actions that is, in turn, dismissed and formulates an appeal for amparo before the Constitutional Court that is inadmissible. of inadmissibility of his complaint alluded to the personality of the appellant as “complainant”, an expression that he considers ignominious for damaging his honor and dignity, estimating the damage at no less than 380,000 euros; Faced with the dismissal of such a peculiar claim, he appealed to the Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the National High Court, which dismissed it and finally appealed to the Supreme Court, which put an end to that intrepid judicial journey with the ruling of April 13, 2011 ( rec.5829/2006) which dismisses it. The High Court responds that the instructor in his resolution limited himself to “referring to a forensic doctor’s report in which it is stated that the plaintiff “has a personality with a slight tendency to paranoia within normal limits but that determines a ‘questioning’ personality. In other words, the Judge did not arbitrarily qualify the appellant as a “complainant”, out of disdain or on a whim” (In Torras Coll, 2021) The complaining personality from psychologyBut beyond justice and law -field in which the term is better known- the querulant personality has an approach from psychology and mental health since this type of personality usually generates discomfort, conflicts and negative consequences for the entire environment of the querulant person. That is to say, it is not only a psychological condition related to the procedural actions. This tendency to sue would actually be one more symptom of the quarrelsome personality. The psychologist Elena Sanz explains in this article what are the most common manifestations of a querulous personality. These are people who, on an emotional and cognitive level: Feel that they are victims of conspiracies or tricks, that they are persecuted or spied on, or that someone is obstructing the achievement of their goals. They have an irritable mood, generally accompanied by anger and discontent. They are hostile and demanding. They feel misunderstood, slandered and harmed in different situations even without real indications that this is the case. They have little tolerance for frustration, are unable to forgive grievances and are spiteful. They feel a desire for revenge towards others. They believe that they are always right. All this is manifested in these behaviors: They tend to show attitudes of suspicion, mistrust, distrust and mistrust. They exhibit negative and defiant behavior. They litigate and seek justice for them and to be compensated for the alleged damages caused, which is why they frequently go to court. They are not available to restate their position or listen to other opinions. For this reason, as the example of Torras Coll illustrated, they will not stop until they are proved right. in the context of a personality disorder, or even in various mental disorders. That is, it is not a mental disorder in itself, but one of its effects. In fact, these features may be present to different degrees without necessarily constituting pathology. However, if they occur excessively and persistently, if this trait makes the person dysfunctional, that is, the person stops attending to their family, work or their own health obligations, it is probably something more serious: a paranoid personality disorder. So querulant personality or querulant paranoid disorder, as it is known in psychology, is a psychiatric and psychological difficulty that may be within the paranoid personality disorders. However, having this querulous personality trait does not mean that one has to suffer from paranoid personality disorder. What is paranoid personality disorder? Paranoid personalities, as J. Vallejo Ruiloba explains in his book Introduction to psychopathology and psychiatry (Barcelona, ​​2011), are characterized by mistrust and hypersensitivity. “They are straight, fair, rational and normative, that is, rigid, and tend to moralize and be very radical in matters of order. On the other hand, their personal relationships are usually based on subordination, they place people above or below them, and they tend to be inconsiderate and overbearing with those they consider inferior and docile and obedient to authority. These people lack flexibility and affective harmony to relativize conflicts and go to court at the first opportunity, willing to assert their formal reason with stubbornness and belligerence. They end up living alone, with no social support other than what they get from the workplace, although they also often litigate against the company and antagonize all co-workers.” Individuals with this personality disorder base their relationships and life in the suspicion that others will betray him, not only strangers, but also the closest people, such as a partner, family or friends.It is because of them that they are hypervigilant and suspicious of the people around them, whom they put on the spot. tests constantly, which makes relationships very difficult. According to the National Comorbidity Survey Replication, it is estimated that 2.3% of the population suffers from this personality disorder, although other sources, such as the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (APA , 2013) point out that this is 4.4% of the population.Treatment of querulous personalityPsychotherapy is the most effective treatment for both cases, whether we are talking I am suffering from a paranoid personality disorder, like a querulous personality trait that is uncomfortable for the affected person’s environment and not very adaptive for himself, but that is not pathological. In any case, it will be complex for a mental health professional to deal with, since the person is not aware of their disorder and they usually perceive therapeutic suggestions as threatening, which tends to arouse even more suspicion. This is more exaggerated in the case of a paranoid personality disorder than in the case of querulous personality. Psychopharmaceuticals, despite being effective from the psychiatric point of view, are not recommended in this type of case because they can generate suspicion and distrust. by the patient, and this usually leads to the abandonment of the therapeutic process.