PERSONALITY DISORDERS
Personality disorders are generalized, inflexible patterns of inner experience and behaviour. These patterns significantly differ from cultural expectations and begin in adolescence or early adulthood. Personality disorders are long-term, maladaptive patterns of perception, emotional regulation, anxiety, and impulse control.
They can lead to enormous personal and societal costs, including lost productivity, hospitalisations, significant unhappiness, imprisonment, and suicide.
Personality disorders are among the least understood and recognised disorders in both psychiatry and general medical care.
Ironically, as a group of disorders, they are among the most common of the severe mental disorders, and occur frequently with other illnesses (e.g. substance use disorders, mood disorders, anxiety disorders). Many imprisoned individuals also have a diagnosable personality disorder.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV, American Psychiatric Association, 1994), organises personality disorders in to three groups:
Eccentic Personality Disorders