ABSTRACT

The current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR; American Psychiatric Association, 2000) defines personality traits “as enduring patterns of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the environment and oneself that are exhibited in a wide range of social and personal contexts.” Personality traits “characterize an individual’s functioning” (p. 686). When these characteristic ways of experiencing and behaving become rigid, maladaptive, or otherwise dysfunctional, and the outcome is “significant functional impairment or subjective distress,” they are defined as a personality disorder (p. 686). The DSM-IV-TR personality disorder criteria describe the enduring pattern as “pervasive involving cognition, affectivity, interpersonal functioning, or impulse control, across a broad range of personal and social situations, causing significant distress or impairment, and of stable or long-term duration.” Assessment of personality disorders “requires an evaluation of

the individual’s long-term patterns of functioning” (p. 686) and “the particular personality features must be evident by early adulthood” (p. 686).