There is this diagnostic category in the DSM (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual: the tool by which mental health professionals diagnose) which contains the personality disorders. What defines personality disorders is that the people who have them have basically organized themselves toward the world in a certain way. They interact with many different people in many different situations in a “maladaptive” way. You could say their personalities have “crystallized” in this way because of many different factors, including their experiences. The term “personality disorders” is used because personalities do not change much over the lifespan, except by some traumatic event.

This also means that the world organizes themselves around these people in a predictable way. People who are typically trod upon typically get trod on again, and people who commit dastardly acts are typically condemned and keep on doing what they do.

The way to help them (and ourselves since we all have some stuckness in our personalities) is to interact with them in an atypical way. That’s what Jesus did: those who expected to be outcast he welcomed and those who expected to be condemned he forgave. That is our hope – that God approaches us in a way not expected. The world offers us the same old thing; Jesus offers us something new – something that will change us and pull us out of our stuckness.