Assessment of Personality Disorder

In this chapter, we review the current state of personality disorder (PD) assessment practices. The review includes both traditional measures that are rooted in categorical conceptualizations of PD and dimensional measures that have emerged in response to mounting evidence that has called into question the validity of traditional PD classification approaches. The scope of this chapter includes prominent and promising models and measures of PD. Moreover, our review is focused on omnibus measures that present a relatively “complete” picture of personality pathology rather than measures that focus on the features of only one or a limited set of PDs. Finally, we address two important topics relevant to PD assessment. First, we discuss the cross-cultural PD assessment literature, which is characterized by a relative lack of strong cross-cultural research on the manifestation and measurement of PD. Second, we address the disconnect between research and applied practice of PD assessment.