Personality Disorders and Violence (From Violence and Mental Disorder: Developments in Risk Assessment, P 203-226, 1994, John Monahan and Henry J Steadman, eds. -- See NCJ-165556)

• NCJ Number: 165565
• Author(s): T A Widiger; T J Trull
• Date Published: 1994
• Length: 24 pages
• Sale Source: University of Chicago Press
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This chapter reviews the literature on the link between personality disorders and violence.

Abstract

Violent behavior is a defining feature for two of the personality disorders included in the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) revised third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM III-R): the borderline and the antisocial. Surprisingly, systematic research on violent, aggressive tendencies among the mentally disordered has rarely considered disorders of personality, and there are no systematic studies on how personality disorders might inhibit aggressive, violent behavior. The dearth of research is understandable, given the inadequacies of the APA nomenclature for personality disorder pathology. This chapter discusses two of the DSM III-R personality disorders for which there is some relevant literature (the borderline and the antisocial) and a third proposed for DSM-III-R and DSM IV (the sadistic personality disorder). The discussion emphasizes issues that hinder the utility and validity of these diagnoses as risk factors for violent behavior. The authors then offer an alternative model for the classification of personality functioning that might prove to be more useful in this area of research. 104 references