Personality Disorders: Model for conceptual approach and classification: Part I: General model

Despite extensive literature, a solid conceptual understanding and classification of Personality Disorders (PDs) have not been achieved. In Part I of this work, we present data suggesting that one core deficit in personality [similar to Kernberg's description of borderline personality organization], generates a fairly large number of clinically discrete PDs. We argue that the borderline level of functioning represents a common dimension extending across most types of severe personality dysfunction currently described as PDs, whereas syndromes classified as individual PDs in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-III Revised (DSM III- R) are categorical maladaptive behavioral types related orthogonally to the common borderline dimension. In Part II of the article, we will present our proposal for the classification of PDs.