Listing 12.08
Personality and impulse-control disorders
This listing covers personality disorders (such as paranoid, borderline, avoidant, or dependent personality disorder) and intermittent explosive disorder — long-lasting, inflexible patterns of behavior.
Read the full plain-language explanation
SSA requires medical documentation of a pervasive behavior pattern (paragraph A) AND serious limits in daily mental functioning (paragraph B). Both A and B are required.
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What Listing 12.08 asks for
What SSA looks for — see the 2 items
We will check your records against each of these. Every item comes straight from SSA's own listing.
- Your medical records must document a deep, ongoing pattern of at least one behavior like: distrust of others, social detachment, violating others' rights, unstable relationships, excessive emotionality, feelings of inadequacy, excessive need to be cared for, perfectionism, or repeated impulsive angry outbursts.
- Only one pattern is needed, but it must be pervasive.
Read the original wording
Your medical records must document a deep, ongoing pattern of at least one behavior like: distrust of others, social detachment, violating others' rights, unstable relationships, excessive emotionality, feelings of inadequacy, excessive need to be cared for, perfectionism, or repeated impulsive angry outbursts. Only one pattern is needed, but it must be pervasive.
(Listing 12.08, criterion A)
- Your condition must also cause an 'extreme' limit in one, or a 'marked' (serious) limit in two, of these areas: understanding and using information, getting along with others, staying focused and keeping pace, or managing yourself.
- Both A and B are required.
Read the original wording
Your condition must also cause an 'extreme' limit in one, or a 'marked' (serious) limit in two, of these areas: understanding and using information, getting along with others, staying focused and keeping pace, or managing yourself. Both A and B are required.
(Listing 12.08, criterion B)
How long it must last:
No listing-specific duration language; the general requirement applies — the impairment must have lasted or be expected to last at least 12 continuous months.