ABSTRACT
Patients with personality disorders may present to the emergency setting in a crisis. The areas of personality that are affected include thinking, affect, interpersonal functioning, and impulse control. One useful way of classifying personality disorders is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders clustering system, which groups these disorders into broad clusters described into Cluster A, Cluster B and Cluster C. The most consistently studied personality disorder in community studies has been dissocial/antisocial personality disorder. Most of the presentations of personality disorders that one comes across in an emergency setting are a consequence of behavioral dyscontrol. The problem of a person with dissocial/antisocial personality disorder usually comes to light because of a significant disparity between his behavior and the prevailing social norms. Psychosocial treatment is the treatment of choice for the management of personality disorders. However, these patients usually present in an emergency setting, where the immediate distress can be effectively relieved by appropriate pharmacotherapy, together with social intervention.
