Personality disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

In May 2013 the fifth version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) was presented by the American Psychiatric Association. The hope that the new classification of personality disorders would allow psychodynamic criteria to be more strongly represented in the classification, was not fulfilled. The new psychodynamic-based criteria were merely included as a future perspective in a special chapter. We have asked our advisory board member Otto F. Kernberg to comment on the background and details of this development. (Michael Ermann, Munchen).