His goal in presenting this volume is to afford psychotherapists an opportunity to step back from questionable clinical categories and redirect their attention onto the individual personality traits commonly associated with personality disorders - to more clearly define them, their origins, and their functional relationships - and in so doing, open up new avenues for research and provide clinicians with a surer conceptual footing upon which to base diagnoses and devise treatment strategies.

To achieve that end, Dr. Costello invited a group of leading researchers and clinicians in the field to share their understanding of the current state of knowledge about personality disorders.

Over the course of eleven chapters, each devoted to a separate personality characteristic, these experts review the latest research data and offer their professional insights into the major personality characteristics of the personality disordered, including aggressiveness, anxiousness, emotional instability, impulsiveness, dependency, narcissism, detachment, paranoia, obsessiveness, and sensation-seeking.