ABSTRACT
In England and Wales, mental health services for clients with personality disorder diagnoses are being improved and coordinated. There is increasing awareness of the relevance of comorbid personality disorder diagnoses in the identification and treatment of primary mental health problems, such as depression (Newton-Howes et al. 2006), and drug and alcohol abuse and dependence (Coid et al. 2006b). In addition, there is an increasing willingness to identify personality disorder as a main diagnosis in mental health care settings (Department of Health 2009a), because there is growing capacity to engage clients in evidence-based interventions for personality disorder (Davidson 2007) and with some expectation of success (Linehan et al. 2006).
