ABSTRACT
With the increasing interest in personality pathology that was ushered in by the inclusion of Axis II in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III; American Psychiatric Association [APA], 1980) there has come an understanding that we must examine not only disturbance of character but also the nature of normal personality (e.g., Costa & McCrae, 1990; Grove & Tel-legen, 1991; Sabshin, 1989; Strack, 1987). Although diagnosis of personality disorders remains a categorical distinction in DSM-III-R (APA, 1987), the belief that normal and abnormal personality are dimensional in nature has become increasingly prevalent in the psychiatric community (e.g., Frances, 1982; Lives-ley, 1991). This shift in thinking poses a number of important questions: What makes a personality normal or disordered? How are normal and abnormal personalities of the same type similar and different? Which traits are shared by normals and patients and which are unique to each population? Questions such as these challenge clinicians and researchers alike to re-examine current conceptions of normality and pathology.
