There is an increasing recognition of the importance of studying the childhood antecedents of adult personality disorders as well as personality disorders themselves within childhood and adolescence. This has been a long neglected area of research. The two papers within this special issue of
Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment by Esterberg et al. (
2010) and De Clercq et al. (
2010) make significant strides toward addressing this delinquent focus of investigation. This commentary addresses three issues stimulated by these two particular studies: the distinction between personality and other mental disorders, dimensional models of classification, and openness to experience.