Schizotypal personality disorder Totally Explained

Everything about Schizotypal totally explained

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Schizotypal personality disorder, or simply schizotypal disorder, is a personality disorder that's characterized by a need for social isolation, odd behavior and thinking, and often unconventional beliefs.
The schizotypal individual develops a fear of, strong objection to, or incapacity for social interaction, due to the sum of their past social experiences being negative in nature. As infants they don't learn how to interact with others, and as children and adults this inability quickly makes them a target for other people. Eventually, the individual learns (most often unconsciously) to see people as harmful and a source of negativity, suffering and ostracization. This leads to the development of "ideas of reference," in which the schizotypal individual believes that events are of special relevance to them or that benign events are somehow related to them (for example, sees two people laughing and believes that the people are laughing at them). The individual may realize that their ideas of reference are irrational, but maintains them nonetheless. This exacerbates the individual's social anxiety, causing them to skew away from society and withdraw into their own world.

Diagnostic criteria (DSM-IV-TR)

The American Psychiatric Association's DSM-IV-TR, a widely used manual for diagnosing mental disorders, defines Schizotypal personality disorder as "A pervasive pattern of social and interpersonal deficits marked by acute discomfort with, and reduced capacity for, close relationships as well as by cognitive or perceptual distortions and eccentricities of behavior, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

Ideas of reference (excluding delusions of reference)
Odd beliefs or magical thinking that influences behavior and is inconsistent with subcultural norms (for example, superstitiousness, belief in clairvoyance, telepathy, or "sixth sense"; in children and adolescents, bizarre fantasies or preoccupations)
Unusual perceptual experiences, including bodily illusions
Odd thinking and speech (for example, vague, circumstantial, metaphorical, overelaborate, or stereotyped)
Suspiciousness or paranoid ideation
Inappropriate or constricted affect
Behavior or appearance that's odd, eccentric, or peculiar
Lack of close friends or confidants other than first-degree relatives
Social anxiety that tends to be associated with paranoid fears rather than negative judgments about self

Link with other mental disorders

There is a high rate of comorbidity with other personality disorders. McGlashan et al. (2000) stated that this may be due to overlapping criteria with other personality disorders, such as avoidant personality disorder and paranoid personality disorder.

Causes

As with any other personality disorder, the roots of the Schizotypal individual's pathology is believed to stem from early childhood, particularly the first or second year of development. The child is subject to inadequate care, usually in the form of emotional/social neglect more than outright abuse. A child can be well-fed, kept clean and safe at all times, but without the constant social stimulation of the mother and/or father, the child (unwittingly) learns to withdraw into itself, and not to seek pleasure from the outside world.

Similarities with Schizoid personalities

There are many similarities between the Schizotypal and Schizoid personalities. Most notable of the similarities is the inability to initiate or maintain relationships (both friendly and romantic) The difference between the two seems to be that those labeled as Schizotypal avoid social interaction because of a deep-seated fear of people. The Schizoid individual simply feels no desire to form relationships, because they quite literally see no point in sharing their time with others. Although Schizotypal persons may share the characteristic social isolation, odd behavior, and disturbed thought patterns of the Schizoid person, the Schizotypal person isn't actively psychotic.

Further Information

Get more info on 'Schizotypal'.

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