Personality disorders research and social decontextualization: What it means to be a minoritized human

Models of personality disorders have overwhelmingly developed in a socially decontextualized manner. Some historical models of personality pathology formally embraced the interactions between the individual and their environment. However, the field of personality disorder theory, research, and treatment has evolved in a manner that situates dysfunction within intraindividual deficiency processes. By doing so the field limits its applicability to populations that do not represent the norm in clinical psychological science (e.g., sexual/gender minority [SGM] persons for our purposes). Assumptions about personality disorders conflict with evidence-based ways of understanding psychosocial dysfunction among minoritized populations. Using research on SGM populations, and the detrimental impact of minority stress, we demonstrate how sociocultural context is inextricably linked to psychosocial functioning, which remains at odds with personality disorder theory and research. We first briefly review the historical roots of personality disorder theory; explore how sociocultural context is currently instantiated in official nosologies as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual; and illustrate how intraindividual personality disorder conceptualization fails to align with the accepted understanding of how minority stress impacts the health of SGM populations. Finally, we end with a few recommendations for (a) future research on personality disorders and (b) clinical work with SGM individuals who might demonstrate behaviors typically associated with a personality disorder diagnosis. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).