Continuity and discontinuity of psychopathology: a study of patients examined as children and as adults. III--The infancy of "adult personality disorders".

Abstract

We undertook a prospective study of all the children who, having consulted the Child Psychiatry Services (Service Médico-Pédagogique) between 1963 and 1967, later consulted the Adult Public Psychiatry Service (720 cases). We looked for specific clinical clusters which would enable us to differentiate statistically the groups of children according to their adult diagnoses. We present here the results for the group of children who were diagnosed as suffering from "personality disorders" in adulthood. We were able to establish an infantile cluster that significantly differentiated these children. It includes: aggressiveness, oppositional behaviour, unsociability, conflicts with peers. 54.6% had already been diagnosed as suffering from personality disorders in childhood. According to these results, the more a consulting child fits this profile, the greater the risk that he will suffer from a "personality disorder" in adulthood. We discuss the continuity/discontinuity of the symptomatology, and the implications for diagnoses of "personality disorders" and "borderline personalities".