XIII Issue 2 Personality disorders are characterized by the presence of inflexible and maladaptive patterns of perceiving oneself and relating to the environment that result in psychosocial impairment or subjective distress. The enduring nature of the behaviors, their impact on social functioning, the lack of clear boundaries between normality and illness, and the patient's perception of the symptoms as not being foreign make this group of conditions more difficult to conceptualize than the more typical, episodic mental disorders.
Personality disorders are both frequent and difficult to treat.
Individuals with these problems consume substantial resources and seriously burden society. The term personality disorders includes diverse conditions that originated in very different clinical, theoretical and research settings, as Rutter pointed out. Some conditions, such as the concept of borderline personality disorder, are mainly the result of psychodynamic thinking. Others, such as schizotypal personality disorder, have their origin predominantly in genetics. Irrespective of the history of each construct, most experts agree that personality disorders emanate from childhood.