Personality Functioning's Associations with Psychopathology: A Transdiagnostic Examination

Personality functioning difficulties, which include components of self and interpersonal functioning difficulties, provide an indicator of severity when diagnosing personality disorders using the Alternative Model of Personality Disorders (AMPD). This study used a sample of 271 adults in the United States who completed both self-report surveys and interview measures of psychopathology to identify multimethod symptom associations for personality functioning difficulties, as measured by the Level of Personality Functioning-Brief Form 2.0 (LPFS-BF 2.0). Correlational and regression analyses indicated that personality functioning relates to a range of psychopathology, but especially strongly to internalizing symptoms rated across methods. When examining associations for specific personality functioning dimensions, self-functioning correlated more strongly with internalizing measures (e.g., dysphoric mood), while interpersonal functioning correlated more strongly with externalizing symptoms and trait measures (e.g., interpersonal difficulties). We use these findings to inform discussion of personality functioning assessment within the context of transdiagnostic dimensional frameworks, while also providing ideas for sharpening personality functioning assessment in research and practice going forward.