A Critical Analysis of the Proposed Self-Defeating Personality Disorder

The similarity between psychoanalytically defined masochistic or self-defeating behavior and clinically measured behavior of victims is exceptional (Caplan, 1985; Rosewater, 1982, 1985; Walker, 1979, 1984). The difference is that behavior exhibited by victims is situational in nature; to label such situational behavior as a personality disorder is invalid because personality disorders, as defined in the DSM-III (APA, 1980), are “generally recognizable by adolescence or earlier, and continue throughout most of adult life” as “enduring patterns of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the environment and oneself” (p. 305). While the term masochistic is more pejorative, as it implies that victims remain in an abusive relationship because they like the pain, self-defeating personality disorder implies that the abuse is the victim's, not the perpetrator's, fault. It also assumes the therapist can attribute a self-defeating motivation to behaviors which women may adopt simply because they lessen the risk of being harmed.