Personality Disorders as Dysfunctional Interpersonal Behavior

Personality disorders, viewed through the lenses of interpersonal psychology, are most distinguished by dysfunctional patterns of social behavior. This article reviews the most promising models of dyadic behavior, highlights the powerful ideas of complementarity and antithesis, and discusses the social-behavioral correlates of a number of DSM-III personality disorders. We point out, for example, that “paranoid” persons characteristically train others to mistreat them, that “narcissistic” persons enact an escalating cycle of self-aggrandizing behaviors that may both cause and result from others' “loss of respect,” and that “dependent” persons typically perpetuate their own helpless positions, and sometimes their depressive mood states, by how they induce others to “help” them.