Murmurs of discontent: treatment and treatability of personality disorder

“They murmured, as they took their fees ‘There is no cure for this disease’.” Hilaire Belloc Treatability is a confused and confusing concept in psychiatry. In its legal sense, it is a measure that limits the involuntary admission of patients with some particular types of mental disorder. The legal term itself has generated considerable discussion and dissent (e.g. Mawson, 1983; Grounds, 1987), and the Government's White Paper on reforming mental health legislation in England and Wales proposes to abolish it (Department of Health, 2000).