Personality Models in the Context of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry - Development, Change, Stability and Research Perspectives

Abstract

Personality models play an important role for the etiological understanding of abnormal development in clinical settings. In this selective review, relevant personality models are presented and, in particular, their developmental dynamics and adaptability over the life span, starting in childhood, are considered in detail. The focus is on the developmental psychopathological perspective of processes of ego-resiliency and self-regulation between the poles of disposition and social environment. This is particularly obvious in the discussion of developmental path models of personality dysfunction with experiences of abuse or disorganized attachment in the child's history. Psychopathologically, an ongoing impairment of self-regulation often results in stable patterns of maladaptation, which leads in the case of purely symptomatic treatment usually only to temporary behavioral modifications. On the other hand, the changeability of pathological personality traits through the use of targeted intervention approaches will favour of a positive outcome and contradicts a deterministic stability of personality characteristics. For future research perspectives in developmental psychopathology, various theoretical personality constructs are discussed and linked to clinical observations.