ABSTRACT

In working with adolescents, clinicians receive minimal guidance from the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM–IV; American Psychiatric Association [APA], 1994). Aside from the diagnosis of conduct disorder (and its near-neighbor, oppositional defiant disorder), clinicians are on their own in assessing the personality characteristics that contribute to adolescent distress and dysfunction. DSM-IV is explicit in its caution to avoid making personality disorder (PD) diagnoses in adolescence. However, this caution is based on the relative lack of data on adolescent personality pathology, not on any research suggesting that adolescent personality pathology does not exist or cannot be diagnosed.