Other categories of personality disorders, apart from borderline personality disorder are encountered in clinical practice and these are described and named in DSM-5 but not in ICD-11. The clinical features and diagnostic criteria of all these types are reviewed here. They are grouped into three clusters: Cluster A, the eccentric PDs – which include paranoid, schizoid and schizotypal PDs – and Cluster B, the dramatic group. The most important of these is antisocial personality disorder as well as borderline and histrionic PDs. Cluster C, which are the avoidant or fearful PDs, include avoidant, dependent and obsessive-compulsive types.

Also included in this chapter are a category of conditions known as ’impulse disorders’, where subjects experience an impulse to commit some action which may give them pleasure and are said to be ego-syntonic, yet result in distress to the individual or harm to others. These include gambling, gaming disorder, intermittent explosive disorder, kleptomania and pyromania.

This chapter defines the terminological differences between the terms ‘fire-setting’, ‘arson’ and ‘pyromania’, including their place in current diagnostic manuals. An epidemiological perspective on fire-setting in those with mental disorder as well as classification systems and theories of fire-setting with prevailing conceptual models of fire-setting and mental disorder is described. Current approaches in the risk assessment of fire-setting and psychological and pharmacological interventions in fire-setting are discussed. Finally, a care pathway to guide clinical and risk assessment of the patient with fire-setting as a feature of their behaviour or history is suggested.

This essay examines the period between the publication of The Rings of Saturn (1995) and Austerlitz (2001). During this six-year time span, the concept of the ‘natural history of destruction’, Sebald’s negative philosophy of history, gains more and more prominence in his writings. This especially applies to the unfinished Corsica Project and in his Zurich Lectures on air war and German literature (resulting in: On the Natural History of Destruction). The Corsica Project examines various forms of human aggression: hunting, blood revenge, deforestation, and pyromania. The origin of these forms of aggression against nature are attributed to nature itself, thus forming part of an all-encompassing natural history of destruction. The destructive instinct of human beings is presented as an innate, natural characteristic and thus as beyond personal moral responsibility. In On the Natural History of Destruction, this pessimistic idea is applied to contemporary history, with the phenomenon of firestorms in the bombing raids of World War II becoming emblems of the natural history of destruction.

Describes the symptoms of intermittent explosive disorder, kleptomania, and pyromania. Explains the models and related treatments for impulse control disorders. Describes the symptoms of oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disorder.