Johnson shows how basic life issues underlie the severepathology of personality disorder, the nagging symptoms ofneurosis, and the more functional coping and adaptation ofthe character styles. Johnson’s dimensional model capturesthe complexity of the human personality, while allowing forvariability not seen in categorical systems such as DSM-IV. His descriptive names of the character styles not only linkchildhood experiences to later personality and psychopathologybut also put flesh and bones on psychiatric diagnosis.