The role of personality disorders in treatment of depression

Abstract

In this paper we are going to explore the relationship between depression and personality disorders and how this relationship affects the treatment of depression. Most of the comorbidity researches between personality disorders and mood disorders identify high levels of co-occurrence, especially in patients looking for treatment for depression. The influence of this co-occurrence has been shown as mostly having a negative impact on the depression treatment (in the sense of longer time to remission, shorter periods of remission, more recurrences, dropout from treatment). Nevertheless, research outcomes are still largely inconsistent, even opposing, which is mostly due to the methodological shortcomings in research designs and the strong preference for the categorical diagnosis of personality disorders, which proves to have substantial shortcomings in terms of understanding personality disorders as well as in researching them. At the end of this paper we present a critical review of up-to-date research designs, recommendations for further research as well as some guidelines for clinical work with patients.