Bridging the gap with the five-factor model

Comments on the original article Personality traits and the classification of mental Disorders: Toward a more complete integration in DSM-5 and an empirical model of psychopathology by Robert F. Krueger and Nicholas R. Eaton (see record 2010-13810-003). Some researchers had hoped the forthcoming Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) would ask psychiatrists (and the clinical psychologists and researchers who are also tied to the DSM) to leap the gap and embrace a trait-based taxonomy of personality pathology (Widiger & Trull, 2007). Krueger and Eaton (pp. 97-118, this issue) take a more pragmatic stance: They hope to coax psychiatrists across by introducing personality dimensions as an adjunct to familiar PD types; they envision that DSM-5 might serve "as a bridge" (p. 110, this issue) to a fully dimensional Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Sixth Edition (DSM-6). We acknowledge the wisdom of this strategy and suggest ways to strengthen it.