Personality Disorder Diagnosis - a Blessing or a Curse?

It is commonly agreed that by our late teens, or early 20s, the most of us have developed our own personality with our distinctive ways of thinking, feeling and behaving. Usually, our personality allows us to get on reasonably, if not perfectly well, with other people. However, for some people this does not happen. Their personality develops in a way that makes it difficult for them to live with themselves and/or other people. They are simply unable to learn from experience and to change their traits.

My experience from working in mental health environments confirms that those with a personality disorder often find it hard to make or maintain relationships. Such people are frequently unable to get on with friends, family or people at work and lack the ability to control feelings and behaviour. As such, they end up unhappy or distressed, often upsetting or harming other people. Having a personality disorder makes life difficult, so other mental health problems (such as depression, or drug and alcohol abuse) co-occur.

Psychologists have developed many personality inventories, i.e. The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) or the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI) and numerous projective tests, i.e. The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) that allow clinicians to assess the patient's patterns of thinking, their worries or anxieties and thus directing them to a valid diagnosis. Furthermore, The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (or DSM-IV-TR), published by the American Psychiatric Association, is now a widely recognized manual that provides standard criteria for the classification of mental disorders, enabling even faster diagnoses.

However, despite all the tools, one question remains unanswered. Is this goal of getting a fast diagnosis a blessing or a curse for those involved? As for me, I am still trying to find out...