ABSTRACT
Johnson (1994) outlines a continuum from personality (character) style to personality (character) neurosis to personality (character) disorder in terms of mild to moderate to severe presentation. The milder end is marked by greater ¯exibility and the capacity to change in the face of new situations; at the severer end, people tend to be more rigid in their approach to the world since they have become more ®xed in certain ways of dealing with situations usually related to the severity of the stress under which the adaptation was encoded. `Personality disorder is often associated with the most troubled interpersonal histories from childhood to old age. Relationships, particularly intimate ones, may be absent, severely limited, or chronically dysfunctional' (Johnson, 1994: 15).
