Psikiyatride Güncel Yaklaşımlar (Jun 2012)
Personality: Description, Classification and Evaluation
Abstract
Many descriptions and classifications of personality have been made to understand and acknowledge human being through out the history. During the developmental process of psychiatry, almost every school defined and assessed personality regarding to their own perspective. As DSM (Diagnostical and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) and ICD (International Classification of Diseases) being available to common usage, scientists conducted studies to set a common terminology for personality. Categorical and dimensional approaches are the most fundamentally different assessment strategies in the research and clinical aspects about personality. While categorical approach views the personality as dichotomies which consists of different groups, dimensional approach aims to describe the personality on the basis of dimensions, thus suggests that the personality is a structure formed by definite dimensions. Several advantages and disadvantages can be noticed when descriptions of personality and tools for the evaluation of personality are reviewed. When the section making suggestions about personality disorder in DSM-5 is evaluated, it is seen that it aims to restructure the personality disorder diagnostic group according to new findings and critiques. In this article, the description of personality throughout the history, dimensional, categorical and cognitive approaches to personality, the features of the tools that are used to assess and measure the personality are reviewed.
