Andrew Carroll is Senior Lecturer in Forensic Psychiatry at Monash University, Fairfield, Australia, where he coordinates the Graduate Program in Forensic Behavioural Science. He is also a Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist at Forensicares community forensic mental health service in Melbourne. His major research interest is the relationship between social cognition deficits, psychotic illness and violence.
Correspondence: Correspondence Dr Andrew Carroll, c/o Forensicare, Locked Bag 10, Fairfield, VIC 3078, Australia. Email: Andrew. Carroll{at}med.monash.edu.au
Paranoid personality disorder is a neglected topic in clinical psychiatry, and is often the subject of diagnostic confusion and therapeutic pessimism. This article presents a summary of the key diagnostic issues relating to paranoid personality disorder and describes various psychological and social processes mooted to be central to the genesis of paranoid thinking and behaviours. The evidence relating to paranoid personality disorder and risk of violence is summarised and clinically useful guidance for the safe treatment of people with the disorder is outlined.