I don't know if this information is still relevant to this discussion, but I am going to post it anyways. If I am disrupting the flow of conversation, please feel free to ignore me.

I have a book called Personality Disorders in Modern Life by Theodore Millon. In it, he details all of the diagnostic criteria for AVPD in easy to understand terms and uses lots of examples. Something that I thought people might be interested in is the section on co-morbidity. More specifically, co-morbidity with social anxiety. He touches on the debate of whether they are one and the same and also talks about some of what he thinks the key differences between the two are.

I will paraphrase, since I don't want to steal. If you can get this book from Amazon or from the library, I really highly recommend it. It's an interesting read and it is so in depth. I will post a link at the end of the post.

Anyways, Mr. Millon says that AVPD contains more specific behaviour that people with social anxiety do not generally display. For example, people with AVPD try really hard to keep up an appearance of self-control and calm. This usually conceals an inner anger that stems from a childhood rife with mockery. It is not necessary for people with social anxiety to do this.

Also, one of the key troubles for people with AVPD is their desire for close companionship and deep relationships, but they believe that such relationships are impossible for them to achieve because of who they are. They believe that, even if all their social anxiety were to disappear tomorrow, they are such an undesirable person that no one would want to be close to them. People with social anxiety do not need to believe that.

Social anxiety and AVPD are very frequently co-morbid and it is actually written in the DSM-IV that if a patient has generalized social phobia (as opposed to situation-specific social phobia, like a lot of people have), that AVPD should be looked at as an additional diagnosis.

Research shows that people who have a diagnosis of social anxiety alone have a far better response to therapy than people with social anxiety and AVPD. People with AVPD and social anxiety are also more likely to have another co-morbid diagnosis. This suggests to Mr. Millon that AVPD has traits that separate it from social anxiety and make it harder to treat.

There are some who argue that AVPD is a more extreme form of social anxiety and others still who say that AVPD is a more specific form of social anxiety, although it is counter- argued that the main reason for the major overlap in diagnostic criteria between the two has less to do with the disorders and more to do with the process through which the DSM is revised.

In this book, there's also a really great section on the four sub-types of AVPD that Wikipedia mentions briefly. They're really fleshed out and they make an interesting read.

So, that's it then. If anyone else has read this book or wants to talk about it, please PM me because I am very interested in discussing it. It would not be a bother at all.

Here is the link to the book, like I promised!