What's the difference between being a loner, an introvert?
Introverts tend to enjoy the company of certain people or have a small group of friends, while most loners tend to avoid people completely. Loners seek solitude and prefer introspection to socializing. Introverts usually seek out social instances less than others, and they need some “recharging time” after big social events.
What is Schizoid Personality Disorder?
Schizoid Personality Disorder is a complex personality disorder that results from a particular child’s attempts to adjust to a family in which the adults could not be depended on to take care of the child. In most cases, the parents were abusive, intrusive, and neglectful.
Children who go on to develop a Schizoid Personality Disorder often reacted to the abuse by learning to dissociate from their body and live mainly in their mind. They could not leave physically, so they left mentally.
They also learned that adults could not be trusted to take care of them or even see them as human beings with rights and feelings that should be respected. Many report knowing by age seven that they cannot depend on anyone but themselves (Klein, 1995).
In adulthood they tend to exhibit many of the following characteristics as a direct result of their childhood experiences:
They try to be very self-reliant.
They usually mistrust other people.
They are very sensitive to intrusion.
They have a rich and elaborate fantasy life.
They may dissociate when stressed and feel detached from their body, other people, or even themselves.
They usually are able to continue functioning, even when they are stressed or in a dissociated state.
They are usually able to mask their emotions and act “normal,” even when they are scared or unhappy.
They tend to have a porous boundary around their sense of self that leads them to experience dominating, loud people as very dangerous.
They prefer to control how close people can approach them.
They like boundaries and rules that make other people’s behavior more predictable.
They do not realize that it is possible to negotiate with other people to get more of what they want and less of what they do not want.
I have found that most diagnostic manuals mischaracterize people with Schizoid Personality Disorder. They generally describe only the lowest functioning and most disturbed people with this diagnosis who have given up on having real relationships with other people.
Most of my Schizoid clients are moderate to high functioning, have careers, some are married, and, despite their fears about the dangers of contact, do want relationships with other people. They are usually very dependable and serious clients when they choose to come for psychotherapy—though if they feel endangered, they may terminate abruptly.
I have found the work of Ralph Klein (1995) to include the most accurate and clinically useful discriptions of individuals who have made Schizoid Adaptations.
References
Gottesman, I. (2001). Psychopathology through a life span-genetic prism. American Psychologist, 56, 867–878.
Klein, R. (1995). The self in exile: A developmental, self, and Object Relations approach to the schizoid disorder of the self. In J.F. masterson & R. Klein (eds.), Disorders of the self: New therapeutic horizons—The Masterson approach. NY: Bruner/Mazel.
Ernst Kretschmer organized those into three groups of characteristics:
Unsociability, quietness, reservedness, seriousness and eccentricity.
Timidity, shyness with feelings, sensitivity, nervousness, excitability, fondness of nature and books.
Pliability, kindliness, honesty, indifference, silence and cold emotional attitudes.
Here, Fairbairn delineated four central schizoid themes:, who observed that the schizoid person and schizoid pathology were not things to be set apart.
The need to regulate interpersonal distance as a central focus of concern.
The ability to mobilize self-preservative defenses and self-reliance.
A pervasive tension between the anxiety-laden need for attachment and the defensive need for distance that manifests in observable behavior as indifference.
An overvaluation of the inner world at the expense of the outer world.
And what about people pleasing?
People who have made Schizoid Adaptations to early childhood situations generally do not know that negotiation between people is an option.
Most consciously or subconsciously assume that to be in a relationship with someone entails doing what the other asks of them (or, conversely, the other doing what they want). They believe that if they do not want to do that, their only other choice is to leave the relationship entirely.
Ralph Klein,MD, described this as a “Master/Slave” relationship in which one person dominates the other.
This view of relationships dates back to their childhood where they felt powerless and their parents dictated all the terms of the relationship and they were likely to be punished or totally ignored whenever they expressed their own real preference.
After a childhood spent being abused, ignored, and treated as if they did not have feelings or rights, most Schizoid individuals will continue this pattern in their adult relationships because they do not know what else is possible.
As a result of the above, many Schizoid individuals, when they are in a relationship with a friend or mate, find themselves doing things that the other person wants, even when they know it is not what they want to do.
Schizoid Personality Disorder (SPD) is called the “hidden self” disorder because it is invisible unless you know what to look for and also understand the meaning of what you are seeing. Most people with SPD find a way to adapt to their issues that usually does not create difficulties for those around them.
Instead of yelling or creating scenes when they are stressed, people with SPD mainly use distancing defenses. They may dissociate from their body and feelings or soothe themselves by retreating from other people. They often work online and mainly socialize through internet sites.
So why should we be concerned about SPD?
There is a whole generation of young people who now can spend most of their free time and even work time without having to interact face-to-face with other people. This might be fine for people without interpersonal issues, but for people with SPD, it allows them avoid learning how to manage their emotions during stressful social situations.
Because young people with Schizoid Personality Disorders can now sidestep real life experiences and replace them with internet relationships, they are less likely to have a group of friends that they see in person. This leaves them deficient in social skills.
They grow up comfortable with virtual relationships and having a rich fantasy life, but you cannot marry a meme or a virtual avatar. When other young people are starting to date, they are unprepared for real relationships that require resolving differences that cannot be solved by turning off the computer.
All of this means that over time, they socially fall further and further behind their peers. This makes it harder for them to find appropriate people to marry and less likely to be able to form families of their own.
Very few psychotherapists know how to diagnose and treat SPD
This problem is intensified by the fact that very little attention has been paid to Schizoid Personality Disorder compared to Borderline Personality Disorder and Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Very few psychotherapy training programs teach anything about SPD, even though people with SPD often do quite well in therapy.
Because people with SPD are usually able to continue functioning at school and work by dissociating from their feelings when things get really bad, and they rarely trust other people enough to confide in them about their problems, their issues have not received the attention they deserve.
