Assessment is not enough: the SPA should participate in constructing a comprehensive clinical science of personality. Society of Personality Assessment.
Several proposals for a comprehensive clinical science of personality are enumerated in this Klopfer award article, namely (a) the need to integrate the study of personality within a framework of universal principles from which its theories can be derived, its categories organized, its assessment tools constructed, and its therapeutic interventions designed; (b) the wisdom of conceptualizing personality disorders, not as discrete "disease entities" but as psychological prototypes; (c) the shift from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Axis I to Axis II distinction to a 3-part complexity continuum demarcated by simple reactions, complex syndromes, and personality patterns; (d) the utility of expanding the range and comparability of routinely appraised clinical domains; and (e) the refining and differentiation of personality style and personality pathology subtypes.
Millon
Theodore
T
Institute for Advanced Studies in Personology and Psychopathology, Coral Gables, Florida 33156, USA.
D039721:Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; D006801:Humans; D010551:Personality; D010554:Personality Disorders / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000628:therapy; D010555:Personality Inventory; D011582:Psychological Theory; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000379:methods*