The journal Personality and Mental Health features a special issue entitled “The Revision of DSM – Intended and Unintended Consequences:  Multidisciplinary Perspectives“.  Sociological, epistemological, legal, and ethical aspects of the DSM-5 are among the themes discussed.  In looking ahead, the papers invariably look to the past at earlier developments in psychiatric nosology.  Andrea Fossati, for instance, discusses the history of personality disorders in Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries:

ABSTRACT.  A recent focus in Western European research on personality disorders (PDs) has been an attempt to generate an integrative perspective or at least a common framework that could be used by researchers with different theoretical orientation to exchange and integrate their findings. This article discusses 19th and 20th century Western European perspectives on PDs, which led to their conceptualization as separate entities. In particular, we focus on the contribution of three approaches: the psychiatric approach, the dynamic contribution and the individual difference perspective. European tradition suggests revising current PD classification systems to produce PD diagnoses that are close to clinical reality but also grounded in data from scientific studies and characterized by a high degree of transtheoretical acceptance. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.