In the past, people from different cultures were committed to mental hospitals because their behaviour was deemed to be go against the norm. The international guidelines recognise this and say personality functioning must take into account the individual's ethnic, cultural and social background. Both the WHO and the APA group personality disorder in three broad categories, but they disagree on the labels within these. The first includes paranoia and schizoid or schizotypal disorders. The second includes antisocial behaviour, people who have an inability to control anger and suffer unpredictable mood swings and borderline cases such as people who resort to self harm.
Doctors are undecided as to whether personality disorder can be treated.
The Mental Health Act 1983 only allows people to be committed to hospital where psychiatrists believe the person is treatable.