Personality disorder in young people : development, assessment, diagnosis, and treatment

Klemenčič, Simona (author), Drobnič Radobuljac, Maja (author), Sharp, Carla (author)

Personality disorders are an often-misunderstood phenomenon. Many of the persistent misconceptions are related to the fact that personality and personality disorder are understood as a simple collection of a person’s trait characteristics. In this paper, we demystify the meaning of personality and personality disorder by drawing on decades of research on personality development and more recent research on the development of personality disorders. We show that while temperament and personality traits play an important role in setting the stage for the potential development of personality disorder (and other disorders), the onset of personality disorder depends on the interruption of the developmental task of creating a coherent and stable sense of self and identity in adolescents. In this view of personality functioning, psychological processes are identified that go beyond traits to identify malleable prevention and treatment targets that serve to support healthy personality development in young people.

• Language: English
• Keywords: adolescence, personality development, personality disorder, levels of personality functioning, dimensional model, staging, assessment, interventions
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: MF - Faculty of Medicine
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2025
• Number of pages: Str. 471-484
• Numbering: iss. 4, Vol. 50
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-184731
• UDC: 616-053.2
• ISSN on article: 1464-0651
• DOI: 10.1177/01650254251396252
• COBISS.SI-ID: 263427075
• Publication date in RUL: 15.07.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: International journal of behavioral development
• Shortened title: Int. j. behav. dev.
• Publisher: Sage
• ISSN: 1464-0651
• COBISS.SI-ID: 518266649

Licences

• License: CC BY-NC 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
• Description: A creative commons license that bans commercial use, but the users don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

Projects

• Funder: ARRS - Slovenian Research Agency
• Project number: P3-0343
• Name: Etiologija, zgodnje odkrivanje in zdravljenje bolezni pri otrocih in mladostnikih

• Funder: ARRS - Slovenian Research Agency
• Project number: J3-4534
• Name: Vplivi na in preprečevanje samopoškodovalnega vedenja pri najbolj ogroženih mladostnikih.