Sadistic and self-defeating personality disorder criteria in a rural clinic sample

A sample of 176 outpatients at a mental health clinic in rural southern Georgia were rated for the presence or absence of the DMS‐III‐R sadistic and self‐defeating personality disorder criteria. On the basis of these ratings, 48 patients met the criteria for sadistic (n = 14) and self‐defeating (n = 41). Surprisingly, half of the patients who met the sadistic criteria also fulfilled the self‐defeating criteria. A factor analysis failed to divide the criteria cleanly into sadistic and self‐defeating subsets.