Ten-Year Retrospective on the DSM–5 Alternative Model of Personality Disorder: Seeing the Forest for the Trees

Abstract

On the eve of the 10-year anniversary of the publication of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition’s (DSM–5) Alternative Model for Personality Disorders (AMPD; APA, 2013), this special section of Personality Disorders: Theory Research and Treatment brings together four target articles on the AMPD. Two of these are written by the architects of the AMPD, focusing on Criterion A (maladaptive self and interpersonal functioning; Morey et al., 2022) and Criterion B (pathological personality traits; Clark & Watson, 2022), and are complemented by an article reviewing both Criterion A and Criterion B in tandem (Widiger & Hines, 2022) and an article on the clinical utility of the AMPD (Bach & Tracy, 2022). We then invited three commentaries for each of the four target reviews to provide additional context and diversity in perspectives. Finally, this special section includes six short review articles that evaluate the extent to which the AMPD adequately represents each of the six personality disorder categories retained in the alternative model.