ABSTRACT
Personality disorder (PD) has become an overused diagnosis, often applied to people who present themselves in a difficult or challenging manner. However, clearly there is a group of people who are distressed greatly by their personal experience and who, for whatever reason, are unable to contain this, resulting in a variety of socially disturbing forms of behaviour. This chapter critically examines the diagnostic features of what is constructed in psychiatric discourse as PD and suggests possible alternatives for understanding these behaviours that may result in more effective mental health nursing care.
