Abstract
In the older nosologies under which I first studied psychiatry the terms “character neurosis” and “symptom neurosis” served to highlight the possibility of interaction or continuity between personality and illness. DSM-111 sought to clarify the relationship by establishing separate axes. This stratified model has real value in conceptualising diagnosis and organizing treatment, but reifies a distinction that is far from proven, and seems even to be fading as time passes: witness the various studies linking social phobia and avoidant PD, affective disorders and borderline PD, obsessive-compulsive disorder and personalty, and of course schizotypal PD and schizophrenia, to name a few. This is hardly surprising considering the complex and overlapping origins of both personality and disorder.