I remember sitting in the basement of a large academic building in an undergraduate psychopathology class. The topic: personality disorders. The outlook: bleak. I found it tricky to separate the person from the disorder. After all, what is the difference between one's personality, and self?

Years later, after working in depth with several individuals given a diagnosis of a personality disorder, I personally believe that our core self cannot be disordered. What we call personality disorders represent significant disruptions in our relationships with self and others. Alterations to these relationships are not the same as changes with a person at their core. People diagnosed with personality disorders ranging from narcissistic personality to schizotypal personality are first and foremost people. Like others, those diagnosed have dreams, fears, pains, joys, and often a desire to recover.

I have come to view these more as adult presentations of attachment disorders than as character or identity problems.

Mentalization-based therapy (MBT) is a psychotherapy option for individuals living with personality disorders (Bateman and Fonagy, 2016). Mentalization is the ability to keep our and others' mental states in awareness as we interact. We all struggle with this at times, but personality disorders create immense difficulties in these areas.

In personality disorders, an attachment style has formed wherein a person is relating in problematic ways. Such styles are often shaped through one's........

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