Interpersonal characteristics are core features of the psychopathy construct which have a unique pattern of correlations with a variety of external correlates. To improve the assessment of interpersonal traits, the current study evaluated the internal structure of the Interpersonal Measure of Psychopathy (IM-P) through exploratory and confirmatory…

The neurobiology of borderline personality disorder (BPD) remains unclear. Dysfunctions of several neurobiological systems, including serotoninergic, dopaminergic, and other neurotransmitter systems, have been discussed. Here we present a theory that alterations in the sensitivity of opioid receptors or the availability of endogenous opioids…

Traditional self-report measures of psychopathology may be influenced by a variety of recall biases. Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) reduces these biases by assessing individuals' experiences as they occur in their natural environments. This study examines the discrepancy between trait questionnaire, retrospective report, and EMA measures of…

This study is the first to demonstrate that features of psychopathy can be reliably and validly detected by lay raters from "thin slices" (i.e., small samples) of behavior. Brief excerpts (5 s, 10 s, and 20 s) from interviews with 96 maximum-security inmates were presented in video or audio form or in both modalities combined. Forty raters used…

Aim: To establish any differences between patients with and without a diagnosis of personality disorders, being treated in a secure inpatient service for offenders with intellectual disability (ID) in the UK. Method: A cohort study involving a selected population of people with ID and offending behaviours. Results: The study included a total of…

The Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills (KIMS) is a well-validated multidimensional questionnaire measuring dimensions of mindfulness on four scales: Observing, Describing, Act With Awareness, and Accept Without Judgment. Even though the KIMS has been used in several clinical studies no information is available about the psychometric…

Mentally disordered patients that abuse drugs or alcohol have a larger number of criminal convictions. Early starters who had their first conviction before the age of 18, especially, more often have a diagnosis of substance abuse and are more often intoxicated at the time of the offense compared to late starters. The present study involved four…

Comments on the original article "Plate tectonics in the classification of personality disorder: Shifting to a dimensional model," by T. A. Widiger and T. J. Trull. The purpose of this comment is to address (a) whether psychologists know how personality traits are currently assessed by clinicians and (b) the reliability and validity of those…

Assessment of the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" (4th Ed.; "DSM-IV") personality disorders (PDs) using five-factor model (FFM) prototypes and counts has shown substantial promise, with a few exceptions. Miller, Reynolds, and Pilkonis suggested that the expert-generated FFM dependent prototype might be misspecified in…

The current study provides the first published evidence that the parasympathetic component of the autonomic nervous system differentiates the response profiles between individuals diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and controls. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), a non-invasive marker of the influence of the myelinated vagal…

The present study builds on previous research, which demonstrated higher levels of depressive and interpersonal conflict language in first-person narrative accounts of nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) and suicide attempt (SA) in borderline personality disorder. The present study was designed to examine the semantic similarity of time-sequences…

The author reviewed a two-part critique of dissociative identity disorder published in the "Canadian Journal of Psychiatry". The two papers contain errors of logic and scholarship. Contrary to the conclusions in the critique, dissociative identity disorder has established diagnostic reliability and concurrent validity, the trauma histories of…

The goal of this article was to examine theoretically important mechanisms of change in psychotherapy outcome across different types of treatment. Specifically, the role of gains in self-understanding, acquisition of compensatory skills, and improvements in views of the self were examined. A pooled study database collected at the University of…

Precision and generalizability for relative and absolute change scores were estimated by means of error/tolerance ratios and generalizability coefficients for 51 patients receiving 1 year of psychodynamic psychotherapy. These estimations involved 6 scale indicators and 3 raters. Practical suggestions are offered for the number of rates needed to…

College counseling professionals address a wide range of complex student mental health concerns. Among these, accurately identifying client presentations of dissociative identity disorder (DID) can be especially challenging because students with DID sometimes present as if they are experiencing another problem, such as a mood, anxiety, or…