Conceptualizing Personality Disorder Perspectives from Philosophy, Psychological Science, and Psychiatry
Book contents
- Conceptualizing Personality Disorder
- Conceptualizing Personality Disorder
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Part I Historical Perspectives
- Part II Contemporary Approaches to Traditional Conceptual Perspectives
- Part III Novel Conceptual Approaches to Personality Disorder
- 10 What Does Personality Have to Do with Mental Disorder?
- 11 Self-Illness Ambiguity in Personality Disorders
- 12 On Personality Dimensions and Disorders
- 13 A Dual-Aspect Approach to Personality Disorder
- 14 Network Architectures of Personality and Its Pathology
- 15 From Paul Tillich’s The Courage to Be to Radical Acceptance and Radical Openness
- 16 Personality “Disorder” and the Incapacity to Self-Regulate
- Part IV Exploring Negative Consequences of Diagnosing Personality Disorder
- Part V Perspectives on Borderline and Narcissistic Personality
- Index
- References
13 - A Dual-Aspect Approach to Personality Disorder
Locating the Normal in the Abnormal
from Part III - Novel Conceptual Approaches to Personality Disorder
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 June 2025
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Book contents
- Conceptualizing Personality Disorder
- Conceptualizing Personality Disorder
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Part I Historical Perspectives
- Part II Contemporary Approaches to Traditional Conceptual Perspectives
- Part III Novel Conceptual Approaches to Personality Disorder
- 10 What Does Personality Have to Do with Mental Disorder?
- 11 Self-Illness Ambiguity in Personality Disorders
- 12 On Personality Dimensions and Disorders
- 13 A Dual-Aspect Approach to Personality Disorder
- 14 Network Architectures of Personality and Its Pathology
- 15 From Paul Tillich’s The Courage to Be to Radical Acceptance and Radical Openness
- 16 Personality “Disorder” and the Incapacity to Self-Regulate
- Part IV Exploring Negative Consequences of Diagnosing Personality Disorder
- Part V Perspectives on Borderline and Narcissistic Personality
- Index
- References
Summary
Personality disorders are classically understood as treatable maladaptive phenotypes that result from biological and psycho-historical facts about people. Some writers and campaigners dissent from this view and offer a more relational/political perspective: we should think not in terms of disordered personalities, but in terms of emotional responses to early life events that are more or less empathically understood in context. In this chapter, I briefly outline these two frames on personality disorder and set them up as a dialectic. I suggest that there is a way of synthesizing the two approaches to arrive at a dual-aspect approach to personality disorders. Personality is the result of biological and psychological facts about people, but it is also a relationally mediated phenomenon. Only by appreciating both of these aspects of personality can we develop a full understanding of what personality disorders are.
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- Conceptualizing Personality DisorderPerspectives from Philosophy, Psychological Science, and Psychiatry, pp. 234 - 243Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025
References
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