Self-defeating personality disorder: Diagnostic accuracy and overlap with dependent personality disorder

This study was designed to determine: (1) whether self-defeating personality disorder can be accurately diagnosed by psychologists from written case studies and (2) the extent of overlap between ratings of self-defeating personality disorder and dependent personality disorder. Participants were 118 psychologists recruited from a state psychological association. The psychologists were asked to assign an Axis II diagnosis, if warranted, to each of six case studies. Three of the four self-defeating cases were accurately diagnosed at a rate significantly greater than chance, with female psychologists more accurately diagnosing self-defeating personality disorder than male psychologists, Psychologists also were asked to rate each case along several personality dimensions, including self-defeating and dependent. Four of the six cases had nonsignificant correlations between ratings of self-defeating and dependent personality dimensions. These results suggest that psychologists can accurately diagnose self-defeating personality disorder from written case studies, and that, in general, psychologists perceive that there is a self-defeating personality dimension that exists independently from a dependent personality dimension. However, these findings supporting the utility of the self-defeating personality disorder category were tempered by the finding that the self-defeating cases were not diagnosed as accurately as were the borderline and dependent cases.