What is it about?
Despite almost a century of empirical research, the concept of personality disorder remains poorly understood and incredibly stigmatized. In this paper, my team and I show that personality disorders can be more specifically understood as a relational disorders. To show this, we develop a mathematical model that demonstrates exactly how ''personality disorder'' can be generated from maladaptive ways of relating to the self and to others.
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Why is it important?
This perspective is important for at least two reasons. First, it clarifies the nature of personality pathology by clearly defining it as how someone relates to themselves (e.g., self-harming) and others (e.g., other-harming). Second, it has the potential to destigmatize ''personality disorders'' by highlighting that they are not about who someone is (their personality) but rather what someone does (their ways of relating).
Perspectives
This was the most difficult but also interesting paper I have written to date. Although I started with no assumptions on what ''personality disorder'' is, I realized along the way that almost everything we think we know about this condition is false and that the only way forward is to stop relying on abstract psychological entities (like ''personality'') and more on concrete and well-defined concepts (like ''ways of relating''). It may be that disorders of ''personality'' are not really about ''relating'' but about something else (e.g., ''feeling''). But whatever the truth may be, it is definite that these disorders are not about personality.
Orestis Zavlis
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: A generative model of personality disorder as a relational disorder., Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science, July 2025, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/abn0001010.
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