of a personality disorder. The individual may have a mix of features of personality disorder
types or some features that are less characteri stic of a type and more accurately considered
a mixed or atypical presentation. The specific level of impairment in personality function-
ing and the pathological personality traits that characterize the individual’s personality can
be specified for PD-TS, using the Level of Personality Functioning Scale (Table 2) and the
pathological trait taxonomy (T able 3). The current diagnoses of paranoid, schizoid, histri-
onic, and dependent personality disorders are represented also by the diagnosis of PD-TS;
these are defined by moderate or greater impairment in personality functioning and can be
specified by the relevant pathological personality trait combinations.
Level of Personality Functioning
Like most human tendencies, personality func tioning is distributed on a continuum. Cen-
tral to functioning and adaptation are indivi duals’ characteristic ways of thinking about
and understanding themselves and their intera ctions with others. An optimally function-
ing individual has a complex, fully elaborat ed, and well-integrated psychological world
that includes a mostly positive,  volitional, and adaptive self-concept; a rich, broad, and ap-
propriately regulated emotional life; and the ca pacity to behave as a productive member of
society with reciprocal and fulfilling interper sonal relationships. At the opposite end of
the continuum, an individual with severe personality pathology has an impoverished, dis-
organized, and/or conflicted psychological world that includes a weak, unclear, and mal-
adaptive self-concept; a propensity to negative, dysregulated emotions; and a deficient
capacity for adaptive interpersona l functioning and social behavior.