Emergent Issues in Assessing Personality Pathology: Illustrations from Two Studies of Adolescent Personality and Related Pathology

As illustrated by two articles that each investigate personality pathology and its correlates in adolescents—Aelterman et al. (2010) on obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) from a dimensional personality perspective, and Barry and Wallace (2010) on indicators of pathological and normative development of youth narcissism—this commentary discusses four important assessment issues that have become more salient as the field considers a shift, through proposed changes in the DSM, to an approach that incorporates trait dimensions as an important aspect of diagnosis: (1) the importance of using multiple information sources for valid personality/ PD assessment; (2) relations of personality traits to (mal)adaptivity in general and also with regard to (3) trait uni- versus bi-polarity; and (4) whether personality types have incremental predictive value beyond their component personality traits and related pathology. The article also discusses why research on childhood and adolescent personality/ PD is important in addressing these issues.