Personality

schizoids.info

Personality …

…and disorder

Being schizoid is primarily a personality feature, that is a permanent pattern of behaviour. This personality has some traits that are described in ICD-10 and DSM-IV.

Some experts think that the word “disorder” is not adequate, but if someone can be attributed to this word, he is the schizoid high grade.

1 - Grades

Being schizoid is not a question of yes or no, of nothing or all. Every personality trait has his grade. For example, the anhedonia may be moderate or may be almost total in severe cases. The schizoid may be of high grade or if he/she go somewhat from the established criteria, to be middle or little schizoid

We can establish 3 grades, corresponding to: LIGHT, MIDDLE or HIGH. The high schizoid are on the boundaries of schizophrenia and low schizoid in normal limits.

2 - Stress Disorders

The stress occurs in situations where the person may say: "I have to do something that I can’t do, and that goes over my limits." This situation negatively affects the individual and his/her mental and physical health.

The schizoid does not have sufficient resources to succeed in matters relating to his/her work and relationships, such as family, friends and the society would expect him/her to. The schizoid is doomed to have stress. Stress, has the following effects in everyone:

1-Anxiety 2-Somatic disorders 3-Dysthymia and depression 4-Brief psychotic episodes 5- Crisis of depersonalization and derealization. The most frequent somatic disorders are digestive disorders. Dysthymia is a mild form of depression, milder but permanent.

The most characteristic features of a psychosis are delusions and hallucinations. The brief psychotic episode is a short hallucination or delusion and can affect anyone who is under stress. The stress that the schizoid person endures makes him/her subject to stress disorders.

These disorders are stress disorders , not personality disorders. Being schizoid leads to stress and this leads to the aforementioned disorders.

3 - A Psychoanalytic Explanation

Psychoanalysis argues that the absence of early links is at the root of the schizoid conflict .

Balint, a psychoanalyst, gives us in his book "The fundamental defect," an explanation of the schizoid behaviour.

The defect lies in the baby’s psychic structure, which the mother was responsible for.

It was an empathy mistake, that is to say, there was a lack of empathy towards the baby from the mother and the atmosphere and this upset his “Ego”.

The subject was a victim of a lack of empathy. During the development the subject, lacks of empathy.

The subject's relationship with another person has its origin in the relationship established with the mother.

By the new relationships the subject repeats the first relationship he had with the mother and the lack of empathy that the baby had suffered happens again.

4 - Heritage and Environment

Recent studies in Biology presents the question this way: The principle lies in the genes, without which you will not see the behaviour in question.

But genes are dormant, they do not have the capacity to activate themselves: it is the environment which activates the gene and the behaviour accordingly. If “the signal” does not appear in the environment, the gene is not activated, it will stay latent: everything depends on the environment.

On the other hand all depends on the gene, without which the environment will not generate a permanent behaviour.

To complicate the profile, the new science called Epigenetics has found that some genes can be inhibited. Certain substances, when getting in contact with certain genes, inhibit those genes, making them stay latent. This phenomenom can take place in the mother’s womb. In those cases the initial genetic heridity does not activate completely. They are important the early experiences as activators of favorable genes. Usually the parents are both the donors of the genes and the activators of environmental stimuli.

5- Between normality and schizophrenia.

The space between the introversion-normality and the schizophrenia is occupied by three groups :

oooo The schizotypal

oooo The avoidant

ooooThe schizoid (This web page is dedicated only to the schizoid)

From the introversion to the schizophrenia it can trace a continuum from the smallest to greatest thing.

The schizoid (and the other groups mentioned) are in the intermediate space.

The high-grade schizoid are near the schizophrenia and they can share the passive schizophrenic symptoms :

oooo anhedonia oooo affective aridity oooo apathy

The low-grade schizoid are near the normality and they have few problems to integrate into society.

6- COMPENSATIONS OR REBALANCES

In the schizoid we can observe some re-rebalances that,spontaneously, he establishes in his life.Its seem compensations that he carries out to seek some balance.

A-INACTIVITY-ACTIVITY The schizoid is characterized by a not active personality, sometimes passive

and sometimes apathetic. For compensation he develops a rich inner life, productive, sometimes creative. Against outside inactivity, inside activity

B- FAILURE-POWER He fails to be a person happily adapted to the surrounding world. This global failure has many partial failures.

For compensation, he activates a constant mental activity of fantasies of power.

He enjoys as he may of the frenzy of the power, to compensate for the bitterness of the failure.

C-HUMILIATIONS-REVENGE The schizoid – who at bottom is a sensitive person – appears indifferent in the real life while he is humiliated.

Sometimes are the circumstances, but the experiences most offensive are the personal. He tries to compensate for these failures in his fantasies, imagining concrete revenge.

D-INSENSITIVITY-SENSITIVITY In the real life he shows cold and insensitive. Sometimes, in private, can be sensitive and charmer.

E-DETACHMENT-OWNERSHIP He goes through life as an uprooted person, detached and disconnected from all.

Intimately he has activated a permanent need of ownership to something, to some group.

It is an emptyness that he it feels, but the no schizoid does not feel it because does not have this void.

F – EMPTY - CREATIVE WORK A life with an enormous friendships lack, communication and affective relationships pleasant it produces a great existential void.
The sterile loneliness becomes too hard. This great void can be filled with the creative work. If this lonesome work produces pleasure,
the success will be guaranteed.

( This web site is available ……….in Spanish ………in French )

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