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Schizoid Personality Disorder Back
     Definition      Symptoms      Causes      Treatment      Sources
Definition
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The word personality describes deeply ingrained behavior patterns and the way individuals perceive, relate to, and think about themselves and the world. Personality traits are enduring patterns of perceiving, relating to and thinking about the environment and oneself that are exhibited in a wide range of social and personal contexts. A personality disorder has the characteristics of an enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectations of the individual's culture, inflexibility and pervasiveness, an onset in adolescence or early adulthood stability over time and causing significant impairment in functioning or internal distress. Personality disorders are not isolated, atypical episodes of maladaptive behavior.

Schizoid personality disorder is a pattern of indifference to social relationships, with a limited range of emotional expression and experience. The disorder manifests itself by early adulthood through social and emotional detachments that prevent people from having close relationships. People with it are able to function in everyday life, but will not develop meaningful relationships with others. They are typically loners and may be prone to excessive daydreaming as well as forming attachments to animals. They may do well at solitary jobs others would find intolerable. There is evidence indicating the disorder may be the start of schizophrenia, or just a very mild form of it. People with schizoid personality disorder are in touch with reality unless they develop schizophrenia.
Symptoms
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  • Takes pleasure in few, if any, activities
  • Does not desire or enjoy close relationships, including family
  • Almost always chooses solitary activities
  • Little or no interest in sexual experiences with another person
  • Lacks close relationships other than with immediate relatives
  • Indifferent to praise or criticism
  • Shows emotional coldness, detachment or flattened affect
  • Exhibits little observable change in mood
People with schizoid personality disorder maintain contact with reality. Also, men may be more likely to have this disorder than women.
Causes Top Top
The cause of personality disorders isn't known. Biologic theorists believe that chromosomal or nervous system disorders are causes. Social theorists believe learned behavior responses cause the disorders. Psychodynamic theorists use deficiencies in ego development to explain causes.

Those with schizoid personality disorder do not have schizophrenia, but it is thought that many of the same risk factors in schizophrenia may cause schizoid personality disorder. Relatives are not thought to be at risk for developing this disorder.

The following research may in part be applicable to causes of schizoid personality disorder:

The cause of schizophrenia has yet to be determined, although research suggests the interaction of genetic endowment and major environmental upheaval during development of the brain. Lines of research involving genetic studies and evidence for neurodevelopmental disruption are starting to converge: neurodevelopmental disruption may be the result of genetic and, or, environmental stressors early in development, leading to subtle alterations in the brain. Environmental factors later in development can either exacerbate or ameliorate expression of genetic or neurodevelopmental defects. The onset and course of schizophrenia are most likely the result of an interaction between genetic and environmental influences.

Diagnostic Evaluation

A psychological evaluation may be performed, and questionnaires and personality tests aid in the diagnosis. Symptoms must not occur solely during a schizophrenic episode for schizoid personality disorder to be deemed.
Treatment Top Top
Treatment can be difficult because of initial reduced capacity or desire to form a relationship with a health professional. A non-intrusive support group can alleviate feelings of solitude, and fears of social interactions and close relationships. Individual therapy, in most cases, has proven relatively ineffective and often temporarily addresses immediate conditions instead of seeking to terminate the disorder entirely.

Medications

Medications are not usually recommended for schizoid personality disorder. However, they are sometimes used for short-term treatment of extreme anxiety states associated with the disorder. The presence of anxiety--usually caused by fear of other people--may mean that a diagnosis of the related Schizotypal Personality Disorder is more appropriate.

Psychotherapy

Individual therapy that successfully attains a long-term level of trust may be useful in certain cases of schizoid personality disorder by giving patients an outlet to transform their false perceptions of friendships into authentic relationships. As a therapist-client relationship develops, a patient can start to reveal imaginary friendships and terrors of dependency. Individual psychotherapy can gradually affect the formation of a true relationship between the patient and therapist.

Group therapy is another potentially effective form of treatment. Although patients may initially withdraw from the therapy group, they often grow participatory as the level of comfort is gradually established. Protected by the therapist, who must safeguard schizoids from criticism by others in the group, patients have the chance to conquer fears of intimacy by making social contact in a supportive environment.

Social consequences of serious mental disorders—family disruption, loss of employment, and housing—are sometimes calamitous. Comprehensive treatment, including services existing beyond the formal treatment system, is crucial to ameliorate symptoms, assist recovery, and redress stigma. Self-help programs, family self-help, advocacy and services for housing and vocational assistance complement and supplement the formal treatment system.
Sources Top Top
  • Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
  • Center for Substance Abuse Treatment
  • Psychology Network-UK
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