Schizoid personality disorder

Schizoid personality disorder (/ˈskɪtsɔɪd, ˈskɪdzɔɪd/, often abbreviated as SPD or SzPD) is a personality disorder characterized by a lack of interest in social relationships, a tendency towards a solitary or sheltered lifestyle, secretiveness, emotional coldness, detachment, and apathy. Affected individuals may be unable to form intimate attachments to others and simultaneously demonstrate a rich, elaborate, and exclusively internal fantasy world. However, one of the distinguishing features of schizoid PD is a restricted affect and an impaired capacity for emotional experience and expression. Persons with AS are “hypo-mentalizers”, i.e., they fail to recognize social cues such as verbal hints, body language and gesticulation, but those with schizophrenia- like personality disorders tend to be “hyper-mentalizers,” overinterpreting such cues in a generally suspicious way (see imprinted brain theory). Although they may have been socially isolated from childhood onward, most people with schizoid personality disorder displayed well-adapted social behavior as children, along with apparently normal emotional function. SPD does also not involve impairments in nonverbal communication such as a lack of eye contact, unusual prosody or a pattern of restricted interests or repetitive behaviors. Compared to AS, SPD is characterized by prominent conduct disorder, better adult adjustment, less severely impaired social interaction and a slightly increased risk of schizophrenia. Schizoid personality disorder (/ˈskɪtsɔɪd, ˈskɪdzɔɪd/, often abbreviated as SPD or SzPD) is a personality disorder characterized by a lack of interest in social relationships, a tendency towards a solitary or sheltered lifestyle, secretiveness, emotional coldness, detachment, and apathy. Affected individuals may be unable to form intimate attachments to others and simultaneously demonstrate a rich, elaborate, and exclusively internal fantasy world. SPD is not the same as schizophrenia or schizotypal personality disorder, but there is some evidence of links and shared genetic risk between SPD, other cluster A personality disorders, and schizophrenia. Thus, SPD is considered to be a 'schizophrenia-like personality disorder'. Critics argue that the definition of SPD is flawed due to cultural bias and that it does not constitute a mental disorder but simply an avoidant attachment style requiring more distant emotional proximity. If that is true, then many of the more problematic reactions these individuals show in social situations may be partly accounted for by the judgments commonly imposed on people with this style. However, impairment is mandatory for any behaviour to be diagnosed as a personality disorder. SPD seems to satisfy this criterion because it is linked to negative outcomes. These include a significantly compromised quality of life, reduced overall functioning even after 15 years, and one of the lowest levels of 'life success' of all personality disorders (measured as 'status, wealth, and successful relationships'). Symptoms of SPD are also a risk factor for more severe suicidal behaviour. SPD is a poorly studied disorder, and there is little clinical data on SPD because it is rarely encountered in clinical settings. The effectiveness of psychotherapeutic and pharmacological treatments for the disorder have yet to be empirically and systematically investigated. People with SPD are often aloof, cold, and indifferent, which causes interpersonal difficulty. Most individuals diagnosed with SPD have trouble establishing personal relationships or expressing their feelings meaningfully. They may remain passive in the face of unfavorable situations. Their communication with other people may be indifferent and terse at times. Because of their lack of meaningful communication with other people, those who are diagnosed with SPD are not able to develop accurate impressions of how well they get along with others. Schizoid personality types are challenged to achieve self-awareness and the ability to assess the impact of their own actions in social situations. Ronald Laing suggests when injections of interpersonal reality fail to enrich an individual, his or her self-image becomes empty and volatilized, making the individual feel unreal. When someone violates the personal space of an individual with SPD, it suffocates them and they must free themselves to be independent. People who have SPD tend to be happiest when in relationships in which their partner places few emotional or intimate demands on them. It is not people they want to avoid, but negative and positive emotions, emotional intimacy, and self-disclosure. Therefore, it is possible for individuals with SPD to form relationships with others based on intellectual, physical, familial, occupational, or recreational activities as long as there is no need for emotional intimacy. Donald Winnicott explains this is because schizoid individuals 'prefer to make relationships on their own terms and not in terms of the impulses of other people.' Failing to attain that, they prefer isolation. Although there is the belief people with schizoid personality disorder are complacent and unaware of their feelings, many recognize their differences from others. Some individuals with SPD who are in treatment say 'life passes them by' or they feel like living inside of a shell; they see themselves as 'missing the bus' and complain of observing life from a distance. Aaron Beck and his colleagues report that people with SPD seem comfortable with their aloof lifestyle and consider themselves observers, rather than participants, in the world around them. But they also mention that many of their schizoid patients recognize themselves as socially deviant (or even defective) when confronted with the different lives of ordinary people – especially when they read books or see movies focusing on relationships. Even when schizoid individuals may not long for closeness, they can become weary of being 'on the outside, looking in.' These feelings may lead to depression or depersonalisation. If they do, schizoid people often experience feeling 'like a robot' or 'going through life in a dream.'