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Thank you, Nummers!

Thanks for clearing that up, Nummers!

My pleasure, dudes. I'm glad that, once in a while, my years of soul-sucking higher education come in handy!

Thanks for clearing that up, I haven't kept up with all the upcoming changes to the DSM, I'll have to look into them further.

Oh! So not as radical as we thought...

Is there an explination why the change?

Yes, there are reasons for the changes, but I don't remember in much detail. Something about increasing diagnostic reliability, and being able to more accurately diagnose people who have features of more than one personality disorder.

Yeah, I saw a leaflet about it in my GP's office and there are NICE guidelines, but it seems to be extremely difficult for adults to get a referral to get assessed and treated.

Perhaps this is so fewer people will end up with the "catchall" Borderline diagnosis and only receive it when it's warranted?

Also, like Nummers pointed out, I think it would be beneficial to have a personality disorder category, and then specify which features a client displays, because if the client only fits a few of the criteria (not enough to currently fully diagnose the person with a personality disorder) but the therapist knows that the person is suffering from the personality disorder due to the way he or she is having difficulty in their daily functioning, they can still be diagnosed as such.

(i.e. Personality disorder (due to difficulty with interpersonal functioning, cognition, impulsivity), then the therapist can specify which features of whichever personality disorder the client seems to fit instead of the client not fitting enough criteria to warrant a P.D. diagnosis)?

I hope that makes sense... it's early and my brain is a little slow right now.

Something like this. Often, an individual will have a few traits from several different categories of PD, but not enough to meet criteria for any single PD diagnosis under DSM-IV. With the DSM-V approach to classifying PD, that person would meet criteria for PD, then descriptors further classify, e.g. Personality Disorder, Antisocial and Narcissistic features. It's a way of acknowledging that PD's aren't really categorical.

The catch-all that's been used under DSM-IV is Personality Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, which is vague and not very useful.

YES. Thank you again, Nummers. That's what I was trying to say, but obviously in a much wordier way, and not as clearly and eloquently as you.

I think the press is having a field day with the whole "Personality Disorders Being Abolished" angle. It misrepresents the rather boring reality, that this is really a clerical change to bring diagnosis into closer alignment with existing conceptions of personality disorders.

Yes they aren't really being eliminated. If you look at the link to the changes meggs posted, narcissism is now listed under antagonistic personality traits.

I think the changes look good. It is making it more of a continuum style model, rather than categorical. Rather than trying to fit someone into a type, it seems to focus more on functional impairment. You have to actually have problems with your self concept or relationships with others to be diagnosed, whereas before it was only based on possessing the traits alone. For example, a narcistic person under the old system is now someone who has impaired relationships because of antagonistic tendencies.

I hope that makes sense- it is hard to type something meaningful with one finger on an iPod!

Which I like. So many disorders fall on a continuum...it's important we start seeing it that way.

This clears it up and makes a lot more sense than these disorders just plain ol' being removed from the DSM-5. 'Antagonistic' cracks me up, it's certainly one way to describe someone with narcissism.