Personality Disorder Not Otherwise Specified

Personality Disorder Not Otherwise Specified

As indicated earlier, DSM-IV includes a diagnostic category, per-sonality disorder not otherwise specified (PDNOS), for persons with a personality disorder who do not meet the diagnostic criteria for any one of the 10 officially recognized diagnoses. PDNOS has in fact been the singly most commonly used personality disorder diagnosis in almost every study in which it has been considered. It would not, of course, be possible to discuss the etiology, pathol-ogy, course, or treatment of the PDNOS disorder as the diagnosis refers to a wide variety of personality types. However, one usage of PDNOS is for the two personality disorders presented in the appendix to DSM-IV for criterion sets provided for further study, the passive–aggressive and the depressive (American Psychiatric Association, 2000).