Personality disorders are mental health conditions. That means only a trained mental health professional can make a proper diagnosis.
To do this, they’ll follow established guidelines for mental health.
The guidelines to diagnose a personality disorder typically come from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), published by the American Psychiatric Association. This handbook contains definitions, symptoms, and diagnostic criteria for most mental health conditions.
To make a diagnosis, a mental health professional will want to learn about your personal and medical history and assess your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Then, they will compare these observations to the criteria established by the latest edition of the DSM — currently the fifth edition (DSM-5).
Specifically, the five criteria that must be met to make a personality disorder diagnosis are:
1. Impairments
These are difficulties you experience in how you see and relate to yourself (identity and self-esteem) and how you connect to other people (intimacy).
In other words, this refers to recurrent thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that might be hurtful to yourself and others.
2. Pathological personality traits
To make a diagnosis, a mental health professional will look for a long-standing pattern of pathological traits.
These are traits that once and again make it difficult for you to interact with others or adapt to change. Or they may be traits that are not expected or accepted in your culture.
3. Duration and flexibility
To be considered a personality disorder, these impairments and pathological personality traits must be stable, inflexible, and consistent throughout your life.
In other words, you’ve experienced these difficulties and responses for a long time and repeatedly across different situations.
4. Independent of culture or developmental stage
This means that the specific behaviors and thoughts your therapist is looking at can’t be explained by your cultural customs or by the capabilities and needs of your age.
For example, an impulsivity trait in an adolescent is almost expected in some circumstances. But if you’re in your 40s, this same impulsivity might be assessed differently.
5. Not related to external factors
A mental health professional will want to make sure that these behaviors, emotions, and thoughts aren’t a result of a substance you may be taking or a general medical condition or injury you’ve sustained.
In sum, if these five requirements are met, a mental health professional will move to diagnose you with a personality disorder.
Since there are 10 of them, that diagnosis will not be the same for everyone. It’ll depend on the specific impairments and personality traits that may be impacting your life the most.
To do this, they’ll follow established guidelines for mental health.
The guidelines to diagnose a personality disorder typically come from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), published by the American Psychiatric Association. This handbook contains definitions, symptoms, and diagnostic criteria for most mental health conditions.
To make a diagnosis, a mental health professional will want to learn about your personal and medical history and assess your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Then, they will compare these observations to the criteria established by the latest edition of the DSM — currently the fifth edition (DSM-5).
Specifically, the five criteria that must be met to make a personality disorder diagnosis are:
1. Impairments
These are difficulties you experience in how you see and relate to yourself (identity and self-esteem) and how you connect to other people (intimacy).
In other words, this refers to recurrent thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that might be hurtful to yourself and others.
2. Pathological personality traits
To make a diagnosis, a mental health professional will look for a long-standing pattern of pathological traits.
These are traits that once and again make it difficult for you to interact with others or adapt to change. Or they may be traits that are not expected or accepted in your culture.
3. Duration and flexibility
To be considered a personality disorder, these impairments and pathological personality traits must be stable, inflexible, and consistent throughout your life.
In other words, you’ve experienced these difficulties and responses for a long time and repeatedly across different situations.
4. Independent of culture or developmental stage
This means that the specific behaviors and thoughts your therapist is looking at can’t be explained by your cultural customs or by the capabilities and needs of your age.
For example, an impulsivity trait in an adolescent is almost expected in some circumstances. But if you’re in your 40s, this same impulsivity might be assessed differently.
5. Not related to external factors
A mental health professional will want to make sure that these behaviors, emotions, and thoughts aren’t a result of a substance you may be taking or a general medical condition or injury you’ve sustained.
In sum, if these five requirements are met, a mental health professional will move to diagnose you with a personality disorder.
Since there are 10 of them, that diagnosis will not be the same for everyone. It’ll depend on the specific impairments and personality traits that may be impacting your life the most.