Depressive personality disorder (also known as melancholic personality disorder) is a controversial psychiatric diagnosis that denotes a personality disorder with depressive features.
Originally included in the American Psychiatric Association's DSM-II, depressive personality disorder was removed from the DSM-III and DSM-III-R. Recently, it has been reconsidered for reinstatement as a diagnosis. Depressive personality disorder is currently described in Appendix B in the DSM-IV-TR as worthy of further study. Although no longer listed in the manual's personality disorder category, the diagnosis is included under the section “personality disorder not otherwise specified”.
While depressive personality disorder shares some similarities with mood disorders such as dysthymic disorder, it also shares many similarities with personality disorders including avoidant personality disorder. Some researchers argue that depressive personality disorder is sufficiently distinct from these other conditions so as to warrant a separate diagnosis.
Read more about Depressive Personality Disorder: Characteristics, Millon’s Subtypes
Famous quotes containing the words personality and/or disorder:
“A personality is an indefinite quantum of traits which is subject to constant flux, change, and growth from the birth of the individual in the world to his death. A character, on the other hand, is a fixed and definite quantum of traits which, though it may be interpreted with slight differences from age to age and actor to actor, is nevertheless in its essentials forever fixed.”
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“Without metaphor the handling of general concepts such as culture and civilization becomes impossible, and that of disease and disorder is the obvious one for the case in point. Is not crisis itself a concept we owe to Hippocrates? In the social and cultural domain no metaphor is more apt than the pathological one.”
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