Fig. 2

A schematic overview of the suggested relationship between personality disorder (PD) and violence. General psychopathology (p) is subsumed by 3 factors, Externalizing, Internalizing and Thought Disorder but, as reported in [7], p is associated most strongly with Thought Disorder (indicated by a heavy arrow in the figure). Externalizing subsumes traits associated with both psychopathy and emotional impulsiveness, both of which contribute to severe PD and increase the risk for violence, particularly appetitive violence. Thought Disorder is shown as contributing independently to the risk of violence, and particularly of aversive violence. Also shown are contextual factors such as alcohol use that operate as proximal causal risk factors for violence in concert with distal personality factors