Revitalizing personality disorder research

Not long ago, personality disorder (PD) research stood at the forefront of a paradigm shift toward dimensional models of psychopathology. But a decade after PD research promised to reshape diagnosis and treatment, the field finds itself stalled-methodologically stagnant and conceptually insular. This special issue aims to redirect that course. It features nine contributions organized around five themes: context, theory building, personality functioning, assessment and diagnosis, and treatment. Each article illustrates what becomes possible when PD research embraces contemporary tools-from computational modeling to natural language processing to intensive longitudinal design-and recenters its clinical mission. Collectively, these studies envision a revitalized field: one that is empirically rigorous, theoretically precise, and responsive to the complexity of human lives. At its best, PD research can illuminate the dynamics of personality and psychopathology while contributing meaningfully to clinical care. But to do so, the field must level up-in focus, in method, and in utility. This issue offers a blueprint for how. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).