The NEO Personality Inventory was given to 33 married patients with bipolar
disorder. Consistent with previous findings, patients with bipolar disorde
r did not show an abnormal personality profile as a group. Extremely wide v
ariation on all scales indicated that the group profile tells little about
individual patients, Trait neuroticism robustly predicted psychiatric sympt
oms at entry to the study when assessed retrospectively for the two years p
rior to entry and when averaged over a year of treatment. Neuroticism also
negatively predicted the self-confidence of the patients in this sample. Th
e patients identified as outliers on neuroticism form a clinically difficul
t group for whom the distinction between Axes I and II appears to be less m
eaningful.