Schizoid Personality Disorder

Schizoid personality disorder might sound a lot like schizophrenia, but theyre actually pretty different conditions. Schizophrenia is not a personality disorder, but a mental disorder that affects the perception of realitymost people are familiar with the symptoms of hallucination due to media like A Beautiful Mind. Schizoid personality disorder, on the other hand, affects social relationships. A person with schizoid personality disorder lacks close social relationships with others and will tend to withdraw from social interaction. They prefer solitude to company and they might act cold toward people. Schizoid personality disorder and schizophrenia arent related, but the emotionless aspect of schizoid personality disorder can resemble the lack of emotion observed in people with schizophrenia.

The causes of schizoid personality disorder are unknown. Like every other disorder out there, it probably involves an interplay of genetics and environment. It is also an extremely rare condition, though diagnosis is complicated. What constitutes a personality disorder in general can be really subjective. At what point is someones personality is disturbed and not just unusual? It might be at the point where that persons personality starts causing serious problems in life, but that often happens with normal personalities. What if someone who supposedly has schizoid personality disorder isnt particularly unhappy with being detached from others? Whether it is a disorder then would be more unclear than it already isit might be a disorder just because its different from the norm.

It may sound like people with schizoid personality disorder are completely devoid of any emotion or desire to socialize, but this isnt always true. It might be more that the way they act makes it seem this way. Socializing involves external cues, and people with schizoid personality disorder are unable to exhibit or pick up on them. This is part of the idea behind group therapy treatment for schizoid personality disorder, which allows patients to socialize in a controlled environment. Still, there are others who arent unhappy with the lack of social relationships in their lives and therapy might be unhelpful, or even unnecessary.

So is schizoid personality disorder really a personality disorder? What defines a personality disorder to begin with? Unsurprisingly, its hard to say. Personality is something thats, well, personal. Were the only ones that can truly know ourselves, and having a disorder would distort the ability to perceive ones own personality. But whos to say that the distorted perception isnt normal? Yet schizoid personality disorder has become a diagnosis in the first place and undoubtedly socialization is a huge part of life.