Personality disorder is a topic of increasing
concern not only to
mental health professionals
but also to those working in primary care, social
services and criminal justice agencies. This
report presents an overview of personality
disorders from a psychological viewpoint. Our
purpose is to summarise
current knowledge with
a view to informing professional colleagues,
service users and their carers, policy makers and
interested lay people
for whom the topic may
still be relatively novel.
It is widely accepted that the psychiatric
classification of personality disorders is
unsatisfactory, but it provides a common
terminology that is essential
as a starting point
for clinical communication and further research.
In this report, we follow the current definition of
personality disorder as a description of those
enduring characteristics
of a person that impair
their well-being or social functioning. We
recognise that some professionals and service
users are uneasy with the idea that personality
can be ‘disordered’ or ‘abnormal’, particularly
since ‘personality disorder’ is sometimes used
pejoratively. However, the term ‘disorder’ has no
precise meaning
in medicine or psychology, and
criteria of ‘healthy’ functioning always depend
on what society values rather than absolute
standards. We nevertheless believe that these
criteria are not entirely arbitrary. However, we
emphasise
that disabling personality
characteristics are most appropriately viewed as
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