Normal and pathological personality traits – criteria and current challenges

The components of human personality are progressively structured, and we gradually become aware of them. The stages of personality ontogenesis are marked by the necessity to satisfy individual biological, material, psychological, social and cultural needs, as they represent the foundation of individual motivation. To fulfill them, the developing Self resorts to unconscious defense mechanisms, which through repetition and awareness become adaptation mechanisms. When personogenesis is disrupted by negative or, traumatic life experiences, pathological personality traits can be structured. The field of personality disorders has moved nowadays from a dominantly categorical approach to a dimensional one in ICD-11, and the personological diagnosis is of a particular complexity due to its flexibility and the necessary and mandatory relation to the age factor. The accuracy of the diagnostic approach must also be ensured by the participation of individual demographic characteristics, narrative biography, and sociocultural framework.