New criteria for personality disorders in DSM-V

Diagnosing disorders in the current edition of the DSMIV involves two aspects. The first is the concept of a personality disorder, which currently is defined as a pervasive, stable and presents at least from adolescence pattern of "inner experience and behavior" that is deviant from a person's cultural norms. The second aspect involves defining what type of personality disorder is present among a list of ten, with a catch-all "not otherwise specified category". There are many problems with the existing system: the different personality types are poorly defined and the diagnostic criteria overlap heavily. The proposed revision on the DSM-V website appears quite complicated and has three major facets: a new definition for personality disorder, focused on "adaptive failure" involving "impaired sense of self-identity" or "failure to develop effective interpersonal functioning"; five personality types (Antisocial/Psychopathic, Avoidant, Borderline, Obsessive-Compulsive, and Schizotypal); and a series of six personality "trait domains", each of them with a subset of facets. This new proposed system for personality disorder diagnosis may be controversial. Finally challenges for the next future are discussed.