Personality Functioning's Associations with Psychopathology: A Transdiagnostic Examination

Area of Science:

• Psychiatry
• Clinical Psychology
• Personality Disorders

Background:

• Personality functioning difficulties, encompassing self and interpersonal aspects, are key indicators for diagnosing personality disorders within the Alternative Model of Personality Disorders (AMPD).
• Assessing personality functioning is crucial for understanding psychopathology severity and guiding treatment within transdiagnostic frameworks.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify multimethod symptom associations for personality functioning difficulties using the Level of Personality Functioning-Brief Form 2.0 (LPFS-BF 2.0).
• To explore the relationship between specific dimensions of personality functioning (self and interpersonal) and various psychopathological symptoms.
• To inform the assessment of personality functioning in research and clinical practice.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a sample of 271 adults in the United States.
• Employed both self-report surveys and structured interview measures of psychopathology.
• Conducted correlational and regression analyses to examine symptom associations with personality functioning.

Main Results:

• Personality functioning demonstrated significant correlations with a broad spectrum of psychopathology.
• Internalizing symptoms, assessed across multiple methods, showed the strongest association with overall personality functioning.
• Self-functioning was more strongly linked to internalizing symptoms (e.g., dysphoric mood), whereas interpersonal functioning was more associated with externalizing symptoms and traits (e.g., interpersonal difficulties).

Conclusions:

• Findings support the integration of personality functioning assessment within transdiagnostic dimensional models of psychopathology.
• The study highlights the differential associations between self/interpersonal functioning and specific symptom domains.
• Recommendations are provided for refining personality functioning assessment in both research and clinical settings.