DSM‐5 and the path toward empirically based and clinically useful conceptualization of personality and psychopathology

The DSM‐5 represents a watershed in the history of mental disorder classification systems because it is the first DSM to incorporate an approach to clinical personality description tied directly to the empirical structure of personality. Personality disorder (PD) constructs in previous editions of the DSM were produced on the basis of putative authority, as opposed to being based on research on the way personality is organized in nature. By contrast, DSM‐5 contains elements that were developed using data, such as a model of clinically relevant dimensional personality specifiers that constitutes part of a DSM‐5 Section III PD diagnosis. In this article, we review the DSM‐5 Section III PD model, focusing on how it contrasts with the DSM‐IV PD model (reprinted in Section II of DSM‐5). We conclude that personality science is leading research and practice in clinical psychology because it provides an evidence‐based approach to comprehensive classification of psychopathology