Towards a contemporary approach for understanding personality pathology in developmental context: An integrative model

Traditional categorical approaches to classifying personality disorders are limited in important ways, leading to a shift in the field to dimensional approaches to conceptualizing personality pathology. Different areas of psychology-personality, developmental, and psychopathology-can be leveraged to understand personality pathology by examining its structure, development, and underlying mechanisms. However, an integrative model that encompasses these distinct lines of inquiry has not yet been proposed. In order to address this gap, we review the latest evidence for dimensional classification of personality disorders based on structural models of maladaptive personality traits, provide an overview of developmental theories of pathological personality, and summarize the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) initiative, which seeks to understand underlying mechanisms of psychopathology. We conclude by proposing an integrative model of personality pathology development that aims to elucidate the developmental pathways of personality pathology and its underlying mechanisms.