The condition known as perilous and severe personality disorder has,in fact, no legal or medical basis. Yet the government is pouring £126m over three years to develop a variety of DSPD services. David Batty explainsWhat is perilous and severe personality disorder?Personality disorder refers to patterns of behaviour or experience resulting from a person's specific personality that differ markedly from those expected by society and lead to distress or suffering to that person or to others. The government first introduced the term DSPD in a consultation paper Managing perilous People with Severe Personality Disorder in 1999, and which proposed how to detain and treat a small minority of mentally disordered offenders who pose a significant risk of harm to others and themselves. Specialist services to deal with these people,most of whom are thought to be serious violent and sex offenders, were proposed in the white paper Reforming the Mental Health Act in December 2000.
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Source: theguardian.com