Considering the evidence and making the most empirically informed decision about depressive personality disorder in...

In this paper, the criteria proposed by Kendler, Kupfer, Narrow, Philips, and Fawcett (2009) for the inclusion or exclusion of a diagnostic category in DSM-5 are reviewed as they relate to the proposal of depressive personality disorder (DPD). Three options are offered as possible decisions for the future of DPD, and a discussion of the actual decision by the Personality and Personality Disorders Work Group is provided. Despite what may ultimately be the removal of the DPD type from the DSM-5, it is concluded that there is considerable support for DPD as a diagnostic category. Such a conclusion incorporates most coherently the empirical findings about the DPD proposal in a way that allows for ongoing empirical investigation of its biogenetic origins, its phenotypic manifestations (including its trait profile) and possible characterization as an endophenotype, and the clinical utility it appears to hold among clinicians.