Can Research Confirm Psychopathological Subtypes and Relationship between Recurrent Mood Disorders and Personality Disorders?

The aim of this study is to estimate the frequency of personality disorders in patients with recurrent unipolar or bipolar affective disorders and the possible relationship of the categorical model with two dynamic psychopathological configurations. Forty-eight patients were studied using semi-structured interviews for assessing Axis I and Axis II disorders. We found that approximately 70% of patients had some types of personality disorder according to the DSM-IV TR classification model. The most frequent personality disorders were cluster C dependent personality disorder and cluster B borderline personality disorder. The most common affective disorders were depressive bipolar I subtype disorder and manic bipolar I subtype disorder. The high frequency of personality disorders in patients who are in partial or complete remission of recurrent affective disorders can be explained by a combination of two subtypes of psycho-pathological configurations (the anaclitic or introjective configurations are based on the Blatt model) and neuro-biological interactions.