John Livesley, University of British Columbia

"The Structure of Personality Disorder: Implications for Trait and Social-Cognitive Approaches to Personality"

Personality disorder is a prevalent but poorly researched form of psychopathology. Considerable debate exists about the best way to represent the various forms of disorder. Although official classifications such as ICD-10 and DSM-IV adopt a categorical approach reminiscent of the typal model long discarded by personality psychology, the evidence suggests that individual differences in personality disorder are best represented by dimensions that are continuous with normal personality variation. The results of multivariate studies of clinical data consistently identify a 4-factor structure that resembles four of the five major dimensions of personality - a factor corresponding to the openness or culture domain is rarely found.

The 4-factor structure appears robust across clinical and non-clinical samples, measures, and cultures raising the possibility that this structure reflects the way personality disorder organized at the biological level. This possibility is supported by behavioural genetic studies. Factor analysis of the genetic correlations among the primary traits delineating personality disorder yields a structure that is highly congruent with phenotypic structure. These findings suggest the existence of a few genetic dimensions that influence the expression of multiple traits to produce the structure described by trait models. But these factors are not the only genetic influences on personality. There also appear to be a large number of generic factors that influence the expression of specific primary traits. Genetic influences of personality disorder appear to be relatively specific.

These findings have implications for the two solitudes that have dominated personality study for the last 30 years: trait and social cognitive theories. Trait theories have sought to explain the structure and coherence of personality in terms of a relatively small number of higher-order or secondary traits with lower-order or secondary traits receiving less attention. Behavioural genetic research, however, suggests that primary traits as the fundamental building blocks of personality. These units show some similarities to the cognitive-affective units adopted by social cognitive theories of personality. They are also consistent with the idea that behaviour is based on modules that evolved through natural selection to solve distinct adaptive problems. This convergence creates opportunities to integrate approaches to personality that are often considered fundamentally different and even irreconcilable

Biography

Dr. John Livesley is Professor Emeritus at the University of British Columbia having previously been Professor and at one time Head of the Department of Psychiatry. He obtained a Ph.D in psychology from the University of Liverpool in 1969 for a thesis on the development of person perception in childhood and adolescence and a medical degree from the same university in 1974. Subsequently, he trained in psychiatry at the University of Edinburgh and the Royal Edinburgh Hospital and completed training in psychoanalytical psychotherapy at the Scottish Institute for Human Relations. He has held academic appointments in psychology at the University of Liverpool and in psychiatry at the Universities of Edinburgh and Calgary.

Dr. Livesley’s research focuses on the classification, assessment, and aetiology of personality disorder. His current interests include the use of behavioural genetic studies to explicate the structure of normal and disordered personality and the development of a dimensional classification of personality disorder. His clinical interests are in the treatment of personality disorder especially the development of an integrated eclectic approach that combines effective interventions from different therapeutic approaches.

Dr. Livesley is a Fellow the Royal Society of Canada and has been editor of the Journal of Personality Disorders since 1996. He served as advisor to the DSM-III-R and DSM-IV working groups on the classification of personality disorder. His publications include a volume co-authored with Dennis Bromley entitled Person Perception in Childhood and Adolescence published in 1973, a book on the treatment of personality disorder -Practical Management of Personality Disorder published in 2003. He has two edited books on personality disorder: DSM-IV Personality Disorders published in 1995, the Handbook of Personality Disorders published in 2001. A third edited book (co-edited with Bert van Luyn and Salman Akhtar), Severe Personality Disorders: Major Issues in Everyday Practice is due to be published in 2007.