Personality Disorders

Abstract

Arguments in favour of diagnostic classification were rehearsed in the Introduction. However, ‘personality disorders’ are a collection of labels which, by contrast with the psychiatric illness labels, seem to serve two purposes only: they provide a form of shorthand for psychiatrists to communicate their opinions, and they provide residual (‘dustbin’) categories for those who feel that everyone who comes to the attention of the psychiatric services ought to be classified somehow. Not surprisingly, once it is accepted that ‘personality’ should be classified, there is a proliferation of different classificatory systems, each of which is further complicated by a cluster of synonyms and an overlay of euphemisms.