Regional Analysis of Self-Reported Personality Disorder Criteria

ABSTRACT Building on the theoretical work of Louis Guttman, we propose that the core problem facing research into the multidimensional structure of the personality disorders is not the identification of factorial simple structure but rather detailed characterization of the multivariate configuration of the diagnostic criteria. Dimensions rotated to orthogonal or oblique simple structure are but one way out of many to characterize a multivariate map, and their current near universal application represents a choice for a very particular set of interpretive advantages and disad-vantages. We use multidimensional scaling and regional interpretation to investigate the structure of 78 self-reported personality disorder criteria from a large sample of military recruits and college students. Results suggest that the criteria have a three-dimensional radex structure that conforms only loosely to the 10 existing personality disorder (PD) cate-gories. Regional interpretation in three dimensions elucidates several im-portant aspects of PDs and their interrelationships. We cannot do justice to the characteristics of the mind by linear outlines like those in a drawing or in primitive painting, but rather by areas of colour melting into one another as they are presented by modern artists. After making the separation we must allow what we have separated to merge together once more. You must not judge too harshly a first attempt at giving a pictorial representation of some-thing so intangible as psychical processes