Anatomy of a debacle: commentary on "seeking clarity for future revisions of the personality disorders in DSM-5"

Abstract

Comments on an article by Gunderson (see record 2013-45025-012). Gunderson's article describes how the process of revision for the personality disorder (PD) section of DSM-5 created opposition and missed a real opportunity for useful change. The current author remarks that a dysfunctional committee came up with a proposal that no one liked, and that was (rightly) rejected in December 2012. The outcome can only be called a debacle. But this debacle was well-deserved. As Gunderson has shown, consultation was minimal, and an agenda was imposed from outside on an unwilling research community. The hope that members of the Personality and Personality Disorders Work Group (PPDWG) still retain-that this proposal, now confined to Section III of the manual, could be the basis for the next set of revisions-is forlorn. We have to start all over again, and Gunderson has suggested some ways we might do so.