Relationship between DSM-III avoidant and dependent personality disorders.

Avoidant personality disorder was added to the nomenclature in DSM-III without a clinical tradition or empirical findings. This report reviews four attempts to validate empirical personality disorders and presents new data. No empirical study has been successful in differentiating avoidant from dependent personality disorders. The current study replicates this overlap, finding only minor differences (dependent personality disorder had more females, avoidant personality disorder had more self-defeating traits). Avoidant and dependent personality disorders should be merged into an enlarged category of dependent personality disorder, which would have three subtypes: avoidant, dependent, and mixed.