Experiencing Personality Disorder: a Participative Research

Abstract

As Personality Disorder continues to be a subject of intense public and professional debate, this study has explored by means of an in-depth interview the views of fifty people to whom this diagnosis has been attributed, to include: demographic data, type of personality disorder and other diagnoses; its meaning for them; how they found out about the diagnosis; its impact; related life events, and value of different types of support. The interviewers were also people with the same diagnosis, who have been trained specifically for this purpose. The findings highlight the mainly negative impact of the label, and the gap between the users' perception of the problems they face in the context of having this diagnosis, and professional perspectives. The likely implications of the findings for the validity and usefulness of the diagnosis are outlined. The methodological innovation of engaging service users with personality disorder is looked at in terms of usefulness and feasibility.