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Dezdemona said:Woa. May I ask as to where you got this idea?

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Right out of my own head--like I said, just a hunch. I'm aware that it's currently classified as a mood disorder, but I think that's a mistake. Here's a quote from the DSM-IV about Personality Disorders:

"Personality traits are enduring patterns of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the environment and oneself that are exhibited in a wide range of social and personal contexts. Only when personality traits are inflexible and maladaptive and cause significant functional impairment or subjective distress do they constitute Personality Disorders. The essential feature of a Personality Disorder is an enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectations of the individual's culture..."

So, yeah, I think dysthymia fits neatly into that category. It's clearly a long-term enduring pattern. (Until the early 20th-Century, people who exhibited these behaviors were said to have "melancholic" personalities.) I don't get bent out of shape about labels, though, unless they have some kind of practical significance. The importance of this label, as I see it, is that it's led a lot of researchers and therapists to treat this problem with a category of treatment that's appropriate for mood disorders. (Then, when such treatment is less than successful, they blame the disorder.)

I'm not married to this hunch, but I think it might be a good idea to look at dysthymia as a personality disorder for a few years and see what kind of treatments can be developed for it.