Volume 37 · Number 2
FEBRUARY 2007

Personality Disorders: A Case in Point for DSM-V — Categories Versus Dimensions

By Jan Fawcett, MD

I found this series of articles on Personality Disorders, guest edited by David Bienenfeld, MD, to be a helpful, comprehensive, and thought-provoking review. This series of articles has many valuable lessons to teach. These lessons include the value of early treatment in modifying damage in children, a delineation of cognitive behavioral approaches along the dimension of automatic thoughts versus core beliefs or schemas, and imaging studies’ delineation of different patterns of functional deficits of brain circuits in various personality disorders. These are useful articles in extending our understanding of these disorders and their treatment.