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Personality Disorder: the Patients Psychiatrists Dislike

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Glyn Lewis  and
Louis Appleby
Glyn Lewis*
Affiliation:
General Practice Research Unit
Louis Appleby
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, London SE5 8AF
*
∗Correspondence
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Abstract

A sample of psychiatrists was asked to read a case vignette and indicate likely management and attitudes to the patient on a number of semantic-differential scales. Patients given a previous diagnosis of personality disorder (PD) were seen as more difficult and less deserving of care compared with control subjects who were not. The PD cases were regarded as manipulative, attention-seeking, annoying, and in control of their suicidal urges and debts. PD therefore appears to be an enduring pejorative judgement rather than a clinical diagnosis. It is proposed that the concept be abandoned.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 153 , Issue 1 , July 1988 , pp. 44 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1988 

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