ABSTRACT
With the publication of DSM-III (APA, 1980), the American Psychiatric Association introduced a multiaxial system for psychiatric diagnosis. In doing so it officially recognized the Personality Disorders (PDs) as a significant and independent area of psychopathology, distinguishing them from the major clinical syndromes in a separate “Axis II.” The APA Task Force proposed 11 categories of PDs, generally described as sets of “inflexible and maladaptive” traits that are “characteristic of an individual’s current and long-term functioning, are not limited to discrete episodes of illness, and cause either significant impairment in social or occupational functioning or subjective distress” (APA, 1980, p. 305). This definition of chronic maladaptive traits is congruent with the prevailing view of normal range personality dispositions and will facilitate much needed integration of the two realms (Gunderson, 1983).
