Why personality and psychopathology are correlated: developmental perspective is a first step but more is needed

Abstract

Durbin and Hicks concluded in their paper on personality-psychopathology relationships that the field is stagnant. Their remedy is the developmental perspective. We agree this is definitely one (already ongoing!) way forward. However, some of their judgements were overstated, while their proposal neglected deep complexities of the personality–disorder relationship. Nowhere did they specify and elaborate the ‘conceptual and empirical distinctions between traits and disorders’. Additionally, they failed to discuss two other complexities: induction time and determining true change. We elaborate these issues and stress the power of intervention designs.