Most personality disorders share features with normal personality traits.
The personality disorders are defined by the extremes of several personality traits. Key to diagnosis is that the person experiences these patterns of behavior and that they are pervasive, long-standing, and dysfunctional. Typically, when a person gets the diagnosis of one personality disorder, he or she also meets the criteria for other personality disorders. However, this led to the increased frequency of diagnoses for the other personality disorders. Dimensional Classification A. Current practice is categorical classification B. Development of dimensional schemes is underway.