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European perspectives on personality disorders: Knowing a complex history for a (hopefully) bright future
Author(s) -
Fossati Andrea
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
personality and mental health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.193
H-Index - 22
eISSN - 1932-863X
pISSN - 1932-8621
DOI - 10.1002/pmh.164
Subject(s) - conceptualization , perspective (graphical) , psychology , personality , personality disorders , transtheoretical model , focus (optics) , psychotherapist , engineering ethics , epistemology , social psychology , computer science , artificial intelligence , behavior change , philosophy , physics , optics , engineering
A recent focus in Western European research on personality disorders (PDs) has been an attempt to generate an integrative perspective or at least a common framework that could be used by researchers with different theoretical orientation to exchange and integrate their findings. This article discusses 19th and 20th century Western European perspectives on PDs, which led to their conceptualization as separate entities. In particular, we focus on the contribution of three approaches: the psychiatric approach, the dynamic contribution and the individual difference perspective. European tradition suggests revising current PD classification systems to produce PD diagnoses that are close to clinical reality but also grounded in data from scientific studies and characterized by a high degree of transtheoretical acceptance. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.