Avoidant Personality Disorder and Gender

[Page 117]Avoidant personality disorder (PD) refers to a long-standing and maladaptive pattern of social isolation, insecurity, and sensitivity to the judgments of others, which usually appears in an individual by adolescence and causes the person considerable suffering or difficulty at school, at work, or in relationships. Theodore Millon introduced the concept in 1969, but psychological writings since the early 1900s have referred to precursors of the idea of an avoidant personality, although they conflated the current concepts of schizoid and avoidant PDs. Absent from earlier versions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), avoidant PD joined other disorders in the then newly formed Axis II of the DSM-III in 1980. Since its inception, avoidant PD has been one of the few PDs ...