What should a schizoid do? A question that one of my subscribers asked me in response to one of the publications about schizoids. In this article, I would like to answer it. As far as I understand the underlying question: what should a schizoid do? - the question lies: how to resolve the main internal conflict of a schizoid? Choose relationships or isolation, detachment and loneliness?
First of all, I would like to note that probably not a single topic like this can be answered with definite, specific advice, like: do this and you will be happy. And in this matter, I adhere to a similar opinion. But, of course, some tips and directions can be very useful in order to better understand yourself and determine what to do next.
So: the first thing to do with conflict is to bring it into balance. Conflict is, by and large, two poles of one world, for example: isolation-relationships. As a rule, schizoids tend to either completely go into isolation and remain completely alone, or completely go into a relationship, merge and never part.
And here the task is to come to some kind of balance, some kind of middle ground. At first, you will most likely experience setbacks from time to time, it will be difficult to stay in this middle - and this is normal. It's like riding a bike. After all, in essence, the ability to stay on a bicycle is the ability to maintain balance so as not to fall to the left or to the right. Or, for example, like walking with a cane on a tightrope. By the way, psychotherapy can serve as a similar cane for you.
In general, psychotherapy is highly recommended for schizoids. Because this is like an artificially created relationship, the only relationship in which a schizoid can acquire a secure attachment. This is a place where you will not be used, manipulated, or done anything that is not in your favor. Where a psychotherapist is an accompaniment, this is the same cane that will help you find balance and see if you are starting to lean in one direction. Relationships in which they can tell you what’s going on, but you only make the decision yourself.
And although it seems like this is an artificially created environment, the feelings and relationships inside it are real. This is precisely what can help a schizoid understand: how to build relationships, how to approach, move away, how to choose a distance. Because, by and large, for a schizoid the main difficulty is choosing a distance. It’s easier for him: either stay alone and say goodbye to relationships, or completely merge with another person.
In psychotherapy, the passage of this moment is long-term; you will most likely need a year or two to study, go through your own experience and gain experience in a safe relationship. After which, you will be able to enter into relationships with other people in real life.
If at the moment you have no opportunity to turn to psychotherapy: I would recommend that schizoids, who are really very detached and isolated, still pull themselves together and go into society. Go to some events, lectures, study, dance, find a new hobby in which you will do something together. Perhaps you will find some kind of interest group; it is usually easier to get there. Go and look for company, learn to make friends, communicate. Yes, it is possible to get burned sometimes. Yes, at such moments it will hurt. Yes, I know, there are many evil people, worthless, unworthy. Yes, you will encounter these. Yes, you will be hurt. Yes, you will most likely again, at some point, withdraw into yourself again.
But this is a normal process, it’s normal: sometimes to return to people, to life, sometimes to go back into yourself, to survive this wound, to get sick, to cry, and again to go to people.
The main problem of schizoid dynamics, the moment when it becomes problematic is when a person decides that I have come across one, two, three “bad” people - that means everyone is like that, that means there are only like that around. After all, this is, by and large, a trauma, this is a traumatized schizoid. It's like putting one pattern on everyone. I came across such people, that’s all, so there are only people like that around, which means I will only come across such “bad” ones. I'd rather stay at home, in isolation.
It is important to remember here that yes, there are many bad, wicked people in the world, but besides them, there are other normal, good people. I think you consider yourself a good person. This means that your task is to find an equally good person. At least 3-4 good people for friendship, and one for personal relationships. That's it, this is enough for you! But for this you need to search, get burned, search again, open up, talk about yourself. Don’t be afraid to ask for help, ask for some kind of internal support. Of course, open up a little bit, you don’t need to pour out your whole soul right away, open up and discover what kind of person is in front of you. Yours or not, try to feel it: ask yourself questions, take a closer look.
It’s another matter if you are unconsciously aimed at being isolated. Or if you unconsciously have the belief that everyone hurts, offends, traumatizes you, then you will: either find people who traumatize you, or see in every person only bad, bad people. This can also be a danger.
But there are no other ways than to go, try, get burned, get hurt, heal wounds, and get into a relationship again. In the end, you will be able to find your people and surround yourself with them. This is a long process that can take years, but there are no other options. The only exception can be therapy, where in a year or two you will be able to find this balance and gain the opportunity to enter into a relationship, break it off, and so on. I wish you success in this difficult but very important task! And if you still have questions, be sure to ask!
Sincerely, Larisa Bandura!
« Schizoid individuals fear self-giving and are influenced by impulses aimed at increasing independence. From a psychological point of view the life of these people is associated with an increased desire for self-preservation. ... in personally close contacts, schizoid personalities shy away from intimacy and avoid it. They afraid of meeting another individual, with a partner and strive to limit human connections to business relationships only. They want to be anonymous members of a group or collective and still experience their belonging to the public interest. They prefer to use the fabulous “hat of invisibility” in order to take part in life unnoticed, and without it they refuse any active social activities.
In relations with their environment, they behave distantly, reservedly, keep their distance, are taciturn and indifferent to the point of coldness. They often appear strange, aloof, unpredictable in their reactions, and cause confusion. You can be familiar with them for a long time, but not really know them. Today it seems that we have with this man good contact, and tomorrow he behaves as if we had never seen each other: the previously achieved intimacy is suddenly and abruptly interrupted, and incomprehensible, unreasonable aggressiveness or hostility offensive to us appears.
Avoidance of intimate intimacy is a consequence of fear of another person, of the openness of self-giving and makes people with schizoid traits isolated and lonely. Their fear intensifies when they need to get close to others or, conversely, when others approach them. The feeling of inclination, sympathy, tenderness and love for another soon leaves them and is replaced by the experience of danger. This explains why they shy away from situations of intimacy that might make them hostile - they suddenly end the close relationship, break off the contact they have achieved with the other, and return back, no longer seeking the established connection.
There is a deep gap in contacts between them and those around them; over the years it expands, which makes schizoids more and more isolated. As a result, the following problem always arises: due to distance from the human environment, the schizoid knows less and less about other people, and this increasingly increases his uncertainty in interpersonal contacts.
A schizoid does not consider what is correct to be obvious to others, especially in the area of close and trusting relationships. As a result, he is prone to suspicions and misconceptions in assessing interpersonal relationships and treats people with deep distrust, since his impressions and ideas about others are ultimately a projection of his assumptions and imagination rather than reality.
Due to limited contacts with the world of interpersonal relations, his judgments are based on personal impressions and experiences, they always have an element of doubt; as reality, he considers only fantasies that correspond to his inner feelings, and creates his own picture of the world, considering the views of others as a mockery of himself.
This uncertainty reaches such a degree of expression that it causes the development of distrust into suspicion and the transition to the actual delusional perception and deceptions of perception, in which the internal and external are confused with each other; this confusion is a projection of reality for schizoids. One can imagine how this torments and worries them, especially if such uncertainty is of a long-term nature.
... Schizoid individuals experience great fear of connection, responsibilities, dependence and limitations on their personality. This fear leaves them very rarely, which explains their unpredictability and strange reactions.
The only one a schizoid listens to and trusts is himself. Hence his extreme sensitivity to a real or imagined threat to his sovereignty and integrativeness, to a hostile violation of the distance he maintains.
Naturally, any feelings associated with an atmosphere of trust and intimacy are not characteristic of him and do not arise in his relationships with partners.
Due to the difficulties that arise in sensual relationships with a partner and in general in search of a partner, schizoids often remain lonely and eventually find a partner in themselves, while receiving self-satisfaction. Sometimes they choose for themselves an ersatz object, as happens in cases of fetishism.
Often, sexual development in schizoids remains infantile with a highly differentiated personality structure. Sometimes the choice of children or adolescents as a sexual partner indicates that severe impairment of the ability to communicate in such cases is accompanied by a lower likelihood of developing fear. Sometimes the suppressed capacity for love and self-giving breaks out in extreme forms of jealousy and even in delusions of jealousy. The schizoid feels how little love he gives to his partner, how little his capacity for love is; he foresees that his partner is unlikely to be able to stay with him. Therefore, he suspects the presence of a rival (sometimes with sufficient reason) who both loves more and is more capable of love than he is. Deprived of warmth and sympathy, the schizoid regards the partner’s natural behavior as cunning or ridicule, that is, a manifestation of his demonism and deceit. These interpretations can reach the point of delirium, to a state where the partnership becomes unbearable and is ultimately destroyed with a feeling of pleasure from the breakup and at the same time suffering, which no one can share and appreciate. The motivation for action here looks like this: if it seems impossible for me to love and keep my loved one, then I prefer to destroy this connection, so as to at least not suffer and prevent another from taking advantage of my partner’s love.
It is especially difficult for a schizoid to decide on a long-term emotional relationship. For the most part, he is prone to short-term, stormy, but changeable relationships. Marriage for him seems, first of all, to be an imperfect human structure, which falls apart on its own, and therefore cannot bring joy and satisfaction. Schizoids tend to calculate and plan human needs and adapt to these types of needs.
Due to the fact that schizoids regard femininity and women as a threat to their lives and treat them with distrust, they often have an attraction to own sex or they choose partners who, due to their quasi-masculine features, look different from others, more feminine and attractive. Such connections often look like friendly brotherhood and contain more common interests than relationships in which the erotic attractiveness of the opposite sex plays a significant role. In all cases, long-term relationships are too difficult for schizoids; separate bedrooms are a self-evident need;
Schizoids experience great difficulty in developing and expressing their love inclinations. They are unusually sensitive to anything that threatens or restricts their freedom and independence; they are stingy with sentimental statements and are grateful to their partner if he modestly and unobtrusively gives them shelter and security. If the partner understands this, he will not show his deep affection, and without unnecessary display of feelings will provide the schizoid with everything he can give him.
Fear and aggression are closely related to each other;
What can a child do to protect himself and overcome dissatisfaction?
At first it is impotent rage, manifested in screaming, later in crawling away and cautious resistance, as well as in motor discharge and refusal to respond to treatment. Since in the early period of life there are still no differences between I and You, these aggressive manifestations are not yet fully justified and are not connected with anything or anyone; This is a simple refusal of reactions associated with unpleasant sensations and dissatisfaction, in order to improve well-being and relieve the body.
Accordingly, such situations that cause total, all-being aggression or rage find a way out in the desire to leave and refuse. Reflexively accumulating, they lead to a refusal to communicate with the outside world or the previously described “motor storm reaction”, which are primitive forms of fear and dissatisfaction in various life situations: flight back, inward, to the “imaginary death” reflex, or flight outward, attack.
Returning now to schizoids, we note that they feel defenseless, helpless, and in danger. Regardless of whether the threat of attack actually exists or is exaggerated, they experience their existence as a threat.
Insecurity in interpersonal relationships and the poverty of connections, as well as the mistrust that arises as a result, force schizoids to experience the approach of others to them as a threat. Initially, this causes fear, which is followed by aggression as a response. Such aggression is not connected with social attitudes and is split off from them, which can lead to antisocial or criminal consequences.
Initially arising as a defense against fear, aggressiveness can acquire a sexual connotation, which manifests itself in various forms cruelty and sadism. Categorical behavior, sudden offensive harshness, chilling coldness and arrogance, cynicism and a rapid transition from affection to hostile refusal of contact are the most common manifestations of aggression. Schizoids lack a sense of proportion and tact, and although they associate their aggression with situational factors, their behavior, of course, depends on their internal experiences and goes beyond the limits of adequacy.
Aggression in schizoids often also serves as a defense and defensive function. In its original meaning, the word “ad - greedi” is equivalent to approaching the source, the beginning of contact; often this is the only form of contact available to the schizoid.
may be one of the forms of self-expression, reminiscent of unsuccessful attempts at rapprochement with the opposite sex and characteristic of puberty. In this case, the behavior of a schizoid is a mixture of fear and crime, hidden emotionality, a rude, aggressive guise of hidden tenderness and indecision, fear of disgrace. Hence the readiness to abandon attempts at rapprochement as soon as possible and the desire to hide behind cynicism in one’s relationship with a partner if he refuses to have a relationship with a schizoid.
When meeting schizoids, it is important to know that their aggressiveness can have the meaning of “advertising” - it is designed to draw attention to their reluctance to lose their specialness and independence.
Aggression arises more easily the more people around them show sympathy towards schizoids and others. positive feelings. The basis of this behavior is a huge gap in interpersonal contacts and, as a consequence, the uncertainty inherent in schizoids.
Difficulties and conflicts that schizoids cannot overcome are translated into somatic symptoms; in this case, the corresponding problems related to the sensory organs are replaced by signs of skin and respiratory damage in the form of eczematous and asthmatic disorders, sometimes occurring at an early age.
The skin is an organ that separates us from the outside world, and if schizoids have difficulty communicating with others, this manifests itself in transient bleeding, psoriasis, sweating, etc.
The experiences of schizoids, also called “split people,” are highly determined by the gap between mental impressionability, impulses and reactions. First of all, their vital impulses are isolated and split off from sensory experiences. In other words, they are unable to integrate different levels of sensory and personal layers into a single, fused experience. Their reason and feeling, rational and emotional, differ greatly in degree of maturity; feelings and reason simultaneously pull into different sides, not being resolved by a single experience. Due to the fact that schizoids from an early age are forced to be guided by reason and are prone to abstract ideas, they do not navigate human emotions and do not distinguish between their nuances. They are familiar mainly with primitive preforms of feelings - affects, the palette of their feelings is impoverished - there are no middle and moderate tones in it and the world is divided only into black and white. The consequence of this is a loss from the system of emotional interpersonal connections.
To protect themselves from fear of intimacy, schizoids strive to achieve the greatest possible independence. Together with a tendency towards autarky and avoidance of contacts, this is naturally associated with increased egocentrism, which requires more and more isolation. It is clear that such people have a high intensity of fears, which are increasingly intensified due to isolation and loneliness. First of all we're talking about about the fear of going crazy, the degree of which can become unbearable. It reflects the schizoid’s experience of the idea that he may cease to exist as a self, as well as his insecurity in this world. One such patient once said: “Fear is the only reality I know.” He characterized his fear not only as a fear of something specific, concrete, having boundaries and outlines, but also as a total experience that embraced his entire being.
Refusal to communicate with the world and turning to oneself gradually leads to a loss of connection with the world, which is accompanied by the experience of fear of self-destruction and absolute emptiness as the realization of a diabolical plan.
Wary attention in schizoids is accompanied by morbid suspicion; such people are forced to behave, as they say, “lower than water, lower than the grass,” because they feel danger in everything and see motives that worry them in any harmless remark.
Here is an example of how schizoid patients delusionally process their repressed and passionate desire for contact and tenderness.
A lonely and withdrawn thirty-year-old man sat next to an extravagantly dressed young man during a concert. He kept sneaking glances in his direction and felt an ever-increasing desire to come into contact with this young man, to talk to him and to please him. Inexperienced in dealing with people and guided only by his own impulses, he began to experience fear, more and more intensifying - first in the form of vague anxiety, which reached the level of panic when he imagined that a red circle was emanating from the young man, in the field of action of which he got it. He broke out in a cold sweat and ran away from the concert hall in horror.
This example shows well what suppressed desires for contact, tenderness and even homosexual intimacy are found by schizoids in the hints of the people around them, who do not even know about it and onto whom they project ideas emanating from them.
It should be emphasized once again that disorders of schizoid personalities can have different intensities. When we try to rank schizoid personalities from healthy to sick, from less severe to more severe disorders, we get the following sequence: mild difficulty in contacts - increased sensitivity - individualism - originality - egoism - eccentricity - strangeness - outsiderism (manner of keeping to yourself) - asociality - criminality - psychotic disorders. We often meet brilliantly gifted people among schizoids. Loneliness and insecurity play a positive role here, as it makes them free from traditions and attachment to the past, which limit the horizons of those who honor the foundations of society and rely on it for support.
Their attitude towards religion is most often skeptical, even cynical; they wittily ridicule the “meaninglessness of faith,” being critical of rituals, traditions and other “formalism.” In general, they willingly deprive the witchcraft charm and expose everything that has an aura of mystery; they treat extraordinary phenomena without any respect, explaining them from the point of view modern science. With complete conviction, they rationalize everything related to the lack of information received by the senses, so that their judgments do not cause debate.
However, it often seems that these attitudes regarding religion and faith are a kind of prevention of disappointment. They prefer not to believe so as not to be disappointed, and secretly wait for “evidence” that could convince them. Sometimes they take a devilish pleasure in nihilism and destructiveness because others have destroyed their faith. But, trying to shake the faith of those around them, they question their own attitudes, perhaps wanting to be left alone with their own unbelief. Schizoids with severe personality disorders are incapable of experiencing love and faith and are prone to atheism.
They often make themselves the measure of everything in the world, reaching the point of monstrous arrogance and self-deification.
In old age, schizoids become increasingly lonely and strange. However, some of them, realizing this, acquire wisdom. We can say that schizoids comprehend the characteristics of age differently than others and, thanks to their independence and isolation from society, endure loneliness more easily. They have long built their own world in which they live without human intervention. Schizoids are less afraid of death than others, treating it stoically and without sentimentality, as an objective fact. Because they give so little to the world and humanity, they feel less abandoned and neglected than others; they hold on not so much to strangers as to themselves, and therefore it is easier than others to part with the outside world. The positive side of schizoids is, first of all, their sovereignty and independence, masculinity in defending their autonomy and individuality. They are characterized by keen observation, affectively cold efficiency, a critical, incorruptible view of reality, and the ability to objectively reflect facts without softening or embellishment. They limit themselves only to a small extent to generally accepted traditions and dogmas and, being independent, take responsibility for risky, previously untried actions.
Devoid of sentimentality, they hate everything unstable, incomprehensible and overly affected. They defend their conviction and uncompromisingness and have their own special opinion for any occasion. Adhering to a satirical and ironic position and reacting sharply to the weaknesses of others, they themselves often make mistakes and show inadequacy in interpersonal contacts, since they are not able to correctly assess the behavior and feelings of other people, what is hidden behind the outwardly prosperous facade. They believe in their strengths and abilities, live without illusions and consider it possible to overcome fate with the help of special techniques, believing that a person is the architect of his own happiness.
We have already mentioned schizoids with a greatly altered personality structure, who do not suffer from this at all and feel healthy. They assert themselves in their autarky and isolation and live at the expense of others, causing them pain with their unceremoniousness. Such individuals include many people in power and not only: in general, people who dispose of others, neglecting their needs and interests and deeply despising them.
Quoted from Fritz Riemann's book, The Fundamental Forms of Fear: research in the field of depth psychology"Nancy McWilliams
In my experience, people with strong schizoid traits are much more common than we think. They show signs of mental and emotional health, despite the fact that among them there are different representatives of people: from those with psychotic traits to enviably healthy ones. Neurotic conflicts are not the central problems of schizoids (Steiner, 1993), and the highest functioning of them, of which there are quite a lot, are in many respects much healthier than neurotics (life satisfaction, self-control, affect regulation, self-object constancy, relationships , creativity). Although Jung's term "introversion" is less stigmatizing, I prefer to use the word "schizoid" because it refers to the complex intrapsychic life of the introverted person, rather than to the usual introspection and desire for solitude, which can be attributed to more -less superficial characteristics.
It seems that mental health professionals do not recognize the existence of high-functioning schizoid individuals because many individuals with schizoid dynamics are hidden or “lost” among the rest. They not only experience something like an allergy to the scrutiny of an outsider, but they are also afraid of being considered crazy or strange. It should be remembered that non-schizoids do tend to attribute pathological traits to people who are more eccentric than themselves and who lead a very solitary lifestyle. Schizoids themselves are afraid of close attention to their own person, fearing that they will be considered abnormal, especially since some of them doubt their own sanity, regardless of whether this is so or not. Essentially, their fear of being psychotic is a projection that their inner world is so inaccessible, unconscious, unique and intolerable to others that isolation becomes akin to madness.
People not associated with psychology consider schizoids strange and incomprehensible. And even mental health professionals tend to consider schizoid individuals to be mentally primitive and abnormal. The emergence of Melanie Klein's (1946) concept of the “schizoid-paranoid” position as a prerequisite for understanding the process of separation from others (“depressive position”) has led to this earlier stage being considered “immature” or “archaic” (Sass, 1992, p. 21). In addition, there have been suggestions that schizoid personality traits are signs of schizophrenic psychosis. Behavior typical of schizoids can indeed be repeated early stages schizophrenic care. It is a common belief that a teenager who spends more and more time in his room and living out fantasies may eventually become psychotic. Schizoidness and schizophrenia may be “cousins”: recent research into schizophrenic disorders has confirmed the existence of a genetic predisposition that can manifest itself anywhere along a spectrum from acute schizophrenia to normal schizoid personality (Weinberger, 2004). (On the other hand, there are many people diagnosed with schizophrenia whose premorbid personality may be described as predominantly paranoid, obsessive, hysterical, depressive or narcissistic).
Another reason why schizoidism is considered pathological is that many of them feel similar to people with psychotic disorders. One of my colleagues, who classified himself as schizoid, prefers to work with psychotics rather than “healthy neurotics” because he perceives neurotics as “dishonest” (i.e. defensive), while psychotics are engaged in an authentic struggle with internal demons. Some scientists who made significant contributions to the development of personality theory (for example, C. Jung and G. Sullivan) not only had pronounced schizoid traits, but also experienced short-term psychotic episodes that did not lead to the development of schizophrenia. We can assume that the ability of these analysts to perceive the subjective experience of deeply disturbed patients is based on the fact that they themselves came into contact with their inner potential for madness with relative ease.
Even highly functioning and emotionally stable schizoid individuals worry about their sanity. A close friend of mine was very upset after watching the film A Beautiful Mind, which depicts the gradual development of psychosis in the eminent mathematician John Nash. The film very realistically immerses the viewer into the world of Nash and in the end it is disconcerting that some characters who seemed to be real people turn out to be only fragments of the main character’s hallucination. Suddenly it becomes clear that the mathematician's thought process has gone from creative genius to psychotic confabulation. My friend began to agonize over what he, like Nash, couldn't always tell the difference when he got creative in thinking about the connections between seemingly completely unrelated phenomena; and situations where he builds completely crazy connections that others would take for madness or nonsense. He spoke of his experiences and concerns to his relatively schizoid analyst, who, in response to the patient's words that he could not trust his mind, quite frankly replied: “Yeah, tell me about it!” (In the section on therapeutic advice, I will explain why this response was quite sensitive, reasonable and therapeutic in this situation, despite the “exit” of the role of the analyst.)
Despite the existence of some connection between the psychology of the schizoid and the sensitivity of the psychotic, I have always been impressed by the high creativity, personal satisfaction and social significance a schizoid person who is intimately familiar with what Freud called primary processes. He never seems to be in danger of having a serious psychotic break. A large number of such people work in the fields of art, theoretical sciences, philosophical and spiritual disciplines, including psychoanalysis. Harold Davis, in personal correspondence with Harry Guntrip, once joked that “psychoanalysis is a profession for schizoids to work with schizoids.” Case studies personality types of psychotherapists at McCourie University (Sydney, Australia) showed that among female psychotherapists the depressive type predominates, and among males the schizoid type predominates.
I believe this can be explained by the fact that high functioning schizoids are not surprised by manifestations of the unconscious and do not run from them. The fact is that they have a fairly close connection (often not always pleasant) with internal processes that most people are not even aware of. Familiarity with their unconscious allows them to more fully understand psychoanalytic ideas that most people would have to wade through on the couch for years and struggle to overcome various defenses to get to their hostile impulses, images or feelings. Schizoids are introspective, love to wander through the recesses of their mind, and in the process of undergoing analysis they manage to find completely accurate and apt metaphors to describe their inner world. Additionally, working as a psychoanalyst or undergoing personal analysis is a great option resolution of the central schizoid conflict about distance and proximity (Wilis, 1956).
I have always been attracted to schizoid personalities. I recently realized that most of my close friends are like this. My type, which is a combination of hysterical and depressive, very organically complements the schizoid. I will also try to talk about this in this article. It is worth mentioning the rather unexpected response to my book on psychoanalytic psychodiagnostics. People often come to me and say that a particular chapter or description helped them understand a certain type of person, identify their own, or was useful in working with clients. However, the section dedicated to schizoids always evokes a special reaction. Several times after a seminar or lecture, a person would come up to me (often sitting quietly the entire time in the back row, closer to the exit), make sure that he was not violating my personal boundaries, and say something like: “I’m just I wanted to thank you for the chapter about schizoids. You really understood us."
Even though readers come to express their personal appreciation rather than to praise my professionalism, I am always amazed that schizoids say “us.” I wondered if these people felt like a community similar to sexual minorities. They are very worried about being considered “mentally ill” or “having some kind of disorder” precisely because they feel like a minority. Mental health professionals often discuss issues related to schizoids by the tone in which they speak about gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people. We tend to equate the dynamics of the schizoid personality with pathology and generalize our conclusions to the entire group, creating an idea of them only on the basis of those who sought psychiatric help due to idiosyncratic problems.
The sensitivity of schizoids is often stigmatized because we, without thinking, reinforce each other's opinion that our psychology of the majority is the norm, and exceptions fall into the section of psychopathology. There is a possibility that people's behavior is determined by completely different psychodynamic and other factors (for example, constitutional features, personal history and context of the situation), so in the field of mental health it is impossible to operate in categories of better/worse than someone. People have an inherent tendency to evaluate and rank each other's differences, and as a result, the lowest position in the hierarchy of society is occupied by a minority.
If we look at the word “us” again, we see that schizoids recognize each other. They feel like members of a society that one of my friends described as a “community of loners.” Homosexual people have a so-called “gay radar,” just as many schizoid people easily recognize each other in a crowd. They talk about a deep sense of kinship and understanding, despite the fact that they lead a rather secluded lifestyle, they rarely talk about “kinship” with each other and do not express the reaction of “recognition” openly. I have noticed that there is now popular literature that attempts to talk about schizoid traits within the norm and even in terms of some value: sensitivity (e.g., The Highly Sensitive Nature [Aaron, 1996]), introversion (e.g., The Invincible Introvert, [Laney, 2002] ]), and the desire for solitude (for example, Party for One: A Single Manifesto [Rufus, 2003]). A schizoid friend of mine told me how one day at school he was walking down the corridor with his classmates and a teacher who, it seemed to him, had personality traits similar to him. On the way to the office, they passed a photograph of Coney Island on a hot summer day, the beach was so crowded with people that the sand could not be seen. The teacher looked at my friend, nodded towards the photo and grimaced, expressing fear and a desire to escape. My friend was surprised and nodded in response. They understood each other without words.
My definition of a schizoid personality
I use the term “schizoid” in the sense in which it appeared in the work of British object relations theorists, and not in the sense described in the ICD (see Akhtar, 1992, p. 139; Doidge, 2001, p. 284; Gabbard, 1994 , p. 431; Guntrip, 1969). The ICD makes unfounded and unsubstantiated claims about the differences between schizoid and avoidant psychology, and states that avoidant personality disorder involves a desire to be close despite distance, while schizoid personality disorder involves an indifference to closeness. I have never met a person, either among people with disorders or among those who are mentally healthy, whose reclusiveness was not the result of an internal conflict (Kernberg, 1984). Recent research confirms this clinical observation (Shelder and Western, 2004). We are attachment-seeking creatures. The detachment of a schizoid person is rather a defensive strategy for avoiding overstimulation, traumatic interaction and lack of strength. Experienced therapists know that such client behavior should not be taken literally, no matter how cruel, repulsive or unpleasant it may seem.
Before antipsychotics were invented, psychotherapists worked with psychotics without the use of drugs, such as at the Chestnut Lodge Clinic. Reports have been of patients withdrawing catatonic, returning when they feel safe enough to have human contact again. (There was one fairly famous case, for which I could not find written evidence. Frieda Fromm-Reichmann sat quietly next to a catatonic schizophrenic for an hour a day, recording everything that happened in the ward and the patient’s possible feelings. After a year of daily observations, the patient suddenly turned to and told her that he did not agree with what she wrote a couple of months ago).
The psychoanalytic term "schizoid" arose as a result of studies of the "split" between inner life and its external manifestations in human behavior. (Laing, 1965). For example, schizoid people clearly demonstrate emotional detachment, but in therapy they describe an incredible desire and desire for intimacy, including fantasies of deep, trusting relationships. They seem self-sufficient, and at the same time, everyone who knows them closely speaks of their strong emotional needs and deep feelings. They can be distracted and hyper-attentive at the same time, appear completely unemotional and hypersensitive, appear affectively dull, while internally struggling to cope with what my friend described as “proto-affect” - the experience of fear from being caught up in a strong emotion. They seem completely indifferent to sex, while being involved in a sexually intense, varied, detailed fantasy life. They may surprise others with their unusually tender souls and periodically fantasize about destroying the world.
Perhaps the emergence of the term was influenced by the characteristic anxieties of schizoids about fragmentation, diffusion and disintegration. They feel too vulnerable to uncontrollable split parts of the Self. Repeatedly I heard them describe their attempts to cope with this dangerous and destructive sense of Self. Someone wrapped himself in a shawl, swayed, meditated, put on a coat inside out, hid in a closet, etc. All these methods of self-soothing indicate that they are confident that other people are a source of frustration, and not of peace and consolation. In schizoids, annihilation anxiety is more common than separation anxiety, and even the healthiest of them periodically experience psychotic fears, such as the feeling that the world will explode, fall apart, or flood at any moment, and the ground under their feet will disappear. Most of all, they need to protect the indestructible core of their self (Elkin, 1972; Eigen, 1973).
As a follower of ego psychology, I find it useful to view the schizoid personality in the context of its fundamental and habitual defense mechanism - withdrawal. It may be external (geographical), as in the case of the man who retreated to his office or remote place when the world around him fell upon him; or internal, when a woman retreated into her fantasies. Object relations theorists emphasized the existence of an internal proximity-distance conflict, in the resolution of which physical distance (not internal) usually wins (Fairbairn, 1940; Guntrip, 1969).
For more disturbed schizoids, withdrawal may look like a continuous state of psychological unavailability; for healthier ones, there is an oscillation between contact and its rupture. To describe the schizoid search for an affective connection, creating distance to restore the self, which feels threatened by the intensity of interaction, Guntrip (1969, p. 36) coined the term “inward and outward program.” This behavior is clearly manifested in the sexual sphere, but is also present in other areas of personal life.
I think that schizoid personalities are so attractive because withdrawal is a relatively “primitive,” global, self-focused defense that obviates the need for more distorting, repressive, and supposedly “mature” defenses. A woman who simply walks away (physically or psychologically) when stressed does not need to use denial, displacement, reactive formation, or rationalization. Consequently, the affects, images, ideas, impulses that non-schizoid people remove from consciousness remain freely available to her, making her emotionally open and honest in a way that still amazes me and probably other people (especially not -schizoid). They appear before us unexpectedly and amazingly sincere.
Another characteristic feature of schizoids (which is often misunderstood and assessed either negatively as a perversion or positively as a strength of character) is indifference or even avoidance of attention to and admiration for one’s own person. Although they may want their work to influence others, most schizoid individuals I know would rather not be paid attention to. Their need for space outweighs their interest in narcissistic feeding. Colleagues of my husband, whom students value for his originality and intelligence, often noted that he tried to publish his articles in very obscure journals without any concern for establishing an academic reputation. Fame as such does not attract him; for him, understanding from people significant to him is more valuable. When I told my friend that I had heard him described as a “smart but hopeless recluse,” he became agitated and asked, “What makes them think I’m smart?” A hermit is quite normal, but a smart one means they got the wrong person.
How do people become schizoid?
I have previously written about the possible etiology of schizoid dynamics (McWilliams, 1994), and in this work I would like to focus on phenomenology, after making some comments about the complexity of the reasons for the formation of a schizoid personality. I am always impressed by the constitutional sensitivity of schizoids, which is noticeable from birth and may be genetically determined. I believe that one of the manifestations of this legacy is a higher and more painful sensitivity than most other people, and its negative and positive consequences (see Eigen, 2004). It appears from birth and intensifies, eventually turning into an avoidance of everything that is felt as too unbearable, oppressive or intruding.
Many schizoid people describe their mothers as cold and intrusive. Parents may think that the child is showing coldness. Some schizoid individuals report that their mothers have reported that as infants they refused the breast or pulled away when held or hugged. A friend of mine admitted that he compares breastfeeding to “colonization” (an invasion and takeover of an innocent people by a stronger country). Associated with this image are the fears characteristic of schizoids about poisoning, spoiled milk and junk food. One of my schizoid friends once asked me over dinner: “Why does everyone like straws so much? Why drink from them? I answered: “Probably because I have to suck.” “Eww,” he said, wincing. Family and friends often describe schizoid people as hypersensitive and thin-skinned. Doidge (2001) notes their “hyperpermeability,” the sense of skin lacking an adequate protective barrier, and the prevalence of fantasy images of damaged skin. Once I gave the first draft of this article to my schizoid colleague to read, he explained that “the feeling of touch is very important: we fear it as much as we desire it.” In early 1949, Bergman and Escalona noticed that some children showed increased sensitivity to light, sound, touch, smell, movement, and tone of voice from infancy. Many schizoid people say that their favorite fairy tale as a child was the story of the Princess and the Pea. Their overwhelm with feelings and sensations in response to the intrusion of other people is often expressed in the form of fear of absorption, fear of spiders, snakes, etc. Edgar Allan Poe, for example, had a fear of being buried alive.
Adapting to an overwhelming and painful world is complicated by the feeling that relationships with other people are poisoning them or turning them into abnormal ones. Most schizoid patients recall their parents irritably telling them that they were “too sensitive,” “unbearable,” “picky,” or “making mountains out of molehills.” Their own sense of otherness was constantly confirmed by the attitude of parents who had a different temperament and were different from their children, did not see them beyond their sensitivity and reacted in response with irritation, anger and even mockery. Hahn (1963) observed that schizoid children show signs of “cumulative trauma,” which is evidence of repeated parental abandonment. Obviously, this is how withdrawal becomes their preferred method of adaptation: the outside world not only evokes strong feelings, but also devalues them, demanding completely different behavior, which becomes painful for them, and then they are considered crazy for reactions that they cannot control.
Based on an analysis of the film “The English Patient” and the work of Fairbairn, Doidge (2001) described the childhood of a schizoid person:
Children... Create internal image a tormenting and rejecting parent... To whom they feel affection. Such parents are not able to love their child and are busy with their own affairs. He is praised when he does not demand anything, devalued and ridiculed for his desire for dependence and affection. This is how the child’s idea of “good” behavior is disrupted. He learns never to cry or ask for love and attention, because this makes the parent even more distant and critical. The child copes with the resulting loneliness, feeling of emptiness and uselessness by retreating into fantasies of self-sufficiency (often unconsciously). Fairbairn said that the tragedy of the schizoid child is that he believes that this is love, and not hatred, contained within them. Love consumes. And the child learns to suppress the absolutely normal desire to be loved (p. 285-286)
Describing the central problem of such a child, Seinfeld (1993, p. 3) writes that the schizoid personality “has an all-consuming need for object dependence, but attachment frightens him with the threat of losing himself.” This comprehensively studied internal conflict is central to understanding the structure of the schizoid personality.
Some rarely mentioned aspects of the psychology of schizoid people
1. Reaction to loss and separation
Non-schizoids, among whom are probably the authors of the ICD and other scientists from the field of descriptive psychiatry, often say that schizoids resolve their conflict of intimacy/distance in favor of detachment, preferring loneliness, lack of attachment and therefore do not respond to separation. On the contrary, inside they experience a very strong attachment, which is more emotional and deep than that of other clearly “dependent” personality types. Since schizoids feel secure and create close relationships with a small number of people, any threat of separation or loss of these relationships can be catastrophic for them. If they have three main people in their life, then losing one of them means one third of their support system disappears.
Perhaps that is why one of the reasons for schizoids seeking therapy is precisely the topic of loss or separation. Another common problem is loneliness. As Fromm-Reichman (1959/1990) noted, loneliness is a painful emotional experience that remains unexplored in the professional literature. The fact that schizoids constantly withdraw and seek solitude is not proof that they are immune to loneliness, just as the avoidance of affect in an obsessive personality does not mean indifference to strong emotions, or the “clinging” of depressed people is not proof of a lack of desire for autonomy. As Guntrip (1969) noted, schizoids come to therapy complaining that the loss of significant relationships has led to feelings of lack of strength, meaning, and even inner death. Sometimes they come with a specific goal: go on a date, become more sociable, improve sexual relationships, overcome what they consider to be “social phobia.”
2. Sensitivity to other people's unconscious
Probably because they do not defend themselves against their own primitive thoughts, feelings or impulses, schizoids can very accurately perceive the unconscious processes of the psyche of other people. What is obvious to them is hidden from the eyes of others. I often thought that I was behaving as usual, not showing my emotions, and only schizoids (friends or patients) surprised me with questions about my “obvious” anxiety or changes in my internal state. In a book on psychodiagnostics, I described the story of a schizoid patient who experienced deep attachment only to animals, but she was the only one who noticed that something was bothering me. At that time, I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and I tried to keep it a secret while I considered treatment options. Another schizoid patient came to an evening session at the end of the week. I was looking forward to the weekend because I was supposed to meet with an old friend. She looked at me (sitting down in the chair, I thought I looked as usual) and said: “Mmm, someone is very good mood!” Schizoids often find that in situations social communication they consistently perceive much more nonverbal information than others. Painful stories of parental rejection and awkwardness in communicating with others lead schizoids to learn that what is obvious to them remains invisible to others. And because they see all the undercurrents of the situation and the behavior of others, they are not fully aware of what is socially acceptable to say and what is not. Thus, the withdrawal mechanism becomes not an automatic defense, but a conscious avoidance strategy instead of an expression of courage.
Such situations are always painfully experienced by schizoids. If there is an elephant in the room, and others do not see it, then how can you not open their eyes to it? Because schizoids lack the usual repressive defense mechanisms, they have great difficulty understanding why others use them. As a result, they wonder, “How can I continue the conversation if they don’t see the obvious?” Sometimes this experience leads to a paranoid version of the dilemma: “Perhaps everyone sees the elephant, but decided not to talk about it. Maybe the elephant is somehow dangerous, but I don’t see it? Or they really don’t see the elephant, then they are completely naive idiots, and it’s dangerous to deal with them.” Kerry Gordon (unpublished work) writes that schizoid people live in a world of possibilities, not probabilities. As with other behavior patterns that are repeated and then begin to prophetically self-actualize, schizoid withdrawal reinforces the tendency to experience primitive processes, which leads to even greater withdrawal due to the negative consequences of being in a solitary world and the awareness of the primitiveness of mental processes.
3. Unity with the world
Schizoids often have fantasies of omnipotence. For example, Doidge (2001, p. 288) mentions a highly cooperative patient who “admitted (only in therapy) that he had always had a fantasy that he could control everything I said to him.” However, the schizoid feeling of omnipotence differs significantly from the fantasies of narcissists, psychopaths, paranoids or obsessives. They are not a contribution to the creation of a grandiose self or a way of maintaining a defensive need to control others. Schizoids feel a strong and deep connection with everything that surrounds them. They may believe that their thoughts influence their environment and vice versa. This is more like an innate syntonic perception of the world than a defense for the embodiment of some desire (Khan, on “symbiotic omnipotence”). Gordon (unpublished work) characterized this experience as “omnipresence,” referring to Matte-Blanco's (1975) notion of symmetric logic.
What strikes me most about this phenomenon is the lack of ontological distinction or exploration of the Self. It seems to me that instead of omnipotence we should talk about the preservation of a sense of primitive fusion, “harmonious, mutual penetration” as Balint (1968) described it. Many schizoids never cease to repeat that the relationship has become disharmonious and toxic. Doidge (2001) talks about Samuel Beckett's (whose writings echo schizoid themes) claim that he was never born. One therapist attending a lecture on schizoids said that they were “under-embodied,” living in a world in which their own body was as unreal as the rest of their environment.
The feeling of interconnection with the entire surrounding world can manifest itself in relation to animate and inanimate objects. Einstein came to understand the structure of the universe by becoming particles and looking at it through their eyes. This tendency to connect with inanimate objects is usually considered a consequence of a withdrawal from human interaction, but may reflect a lingering animistic view of the world, which we encounter most often in dreams or childhood memories. One day my friend and I were eating raisin muffins and she said, “I must be fine. Raisins don’t bother me anymore.” I asked what happened, don’t like the taste? She smiled: “You don’t understand? What if it’s cockroaches!” This famous joke, which I retold to my colleague, evoked in her a memory of her schizoid husband who did not eat raisins because “they were hidden in the bun.”
4. Mutual love hysterics and schizoids
Earlier I said that I am attracted to schizoid people. When I thought about this, I remembered that hysterical women often fall in love with schizoid men. Besides the fact that I like their honesty, there are other reasons for their appeal. Clinical data is replete with stories of hysterical-schizoid couples, their eternal disagreements, problems of persecution and maintaining distance, inability to see that each of them sees himself as frightened and needy, and the other as domineering and demanding. Despite the recognition of the connection between these personality types, there is little literature describing the intersubjective consequences of differences and characteristics in the psychology of these individuals. The story of Vilis (1966/2000) “A man without illusions and a dreamy girl” and the classic description of the philobate and ocnophile Balint (1945) more accurately describe hysteric-schizoid couples than all recently published clinical works.
Their admiration for each other is almost always mutual. The hysterical woman idealizes the schizoid for his ability to keep to himself, to be unique, to openly tell the truth to superiors, to restrain his feelings, to create in his imagination; and the schizoid admires her warmth, gentleness, empathy, ability to easily express feelings without shame, and creative approach to relationships in a couple. They are attracted to each other like all opposites in the world, and then they drive each other crazy when their needs for intimacy and privacy come into conflict. Doidge (2001, p. 286) called a love relationship with a schizoid a trial.
It seems to me that the attraction of these types of personalities to each other has deeper roots. Both types are described as hypersensitive and fearful of over-stimulation. Schizoids feel threatened from the outside, and hysterics are afraid of what is inside: drives, impulses, affects, etc. Both have a history of cumulative trauma or tense relationships. Both of them are more likely to have right-hemisphere thinking. Both schizoid men and hysterical women (at least heterosexual partners, my clinical experience is not so extensive as to draw conclusions about other couples) say that the head of the family was the parent of the opposite sex, and it was he who psychologically invaded the child’s space. Both suffered from a “feeling of hunger,” which schizoids try to tame and hysterics try to sexualize. If I am right about these similarities, then their attractiveness to each other is based not on opposites, but precisely on similarities. Arthur Robbins (personal communication) said that in fact, inside every schizoid there is a hysterical person, and vice versa. I hope that someday I will devote a separate article to this topic.
Therapeutic recommendations
Psychotherapy and psychoanalysis attract people with schizoid dynamics, at least relatively healthy, more energetic and strong representatives of this group. Usually they cannot imagine how anyone could agree to an intrusion that reduces individuality and exploration of the inner world to some kind of therapy. If they can afford therapy, high-functioning schizoids are excellent candidates for psychoanalysis. They like that the therapist has little or no interference in their thought process, the couch becomes an indestructible island of safety, and they greatly appreciate the freedom that comes from not having visual contact with the therapist. Even when meeting face to face once a week, schizoid patients are grateful for the analyst's caring attitude, non-intrusion, and relative closeness. Since therapists know and understand primitive processes not only in theory, but also from personal analysis, schizoids are not afraid of condemnation, criticism or neglect from the analyst in response to a description of their inner world.
Although high-functioning schizoids accept and appreciate traditional psychoanalysis, what they go through in therapy does not quite qualify as a translation of the unconscious into the conscious. Although they have unconscious aspects, successful therapy has more to do with working through what triggers their withdrawal response, namely the experience of transformative exploration of the Self in the presence of an accepting, non-intruding, responsive Other (Gordon, unpublished work). In my experience, the schizoid's "hunger" is a hunger for recognition of their subjective nature, as described by Benjamin (2000). They desperately seek this recognition, fight for it, and over and over again initiate a process that was once interrupted, thereby causing deep trauma. This is what they come to us for.
Winnicott, whose biographers speak of him as a profoundly schizoid man, presented to us the development of the child in terms that apply to describing the process of therapy for the schizoid patient, especially his concept of the good-enough mother who allows the child to “go on being” and “to be alone.” in the presence of the mother." The prescription for therapists is the idea of a supportive environment of non-intrusive Others who value the real and living self rather than its attempts to accommodate the demands of others. Since the office atmosphere provides such an environment, conventional techniques are quite suitable for high-functioning schizoid patients. They feel comfortable if they have the opportunity and space to work through their feelings and thoughts at a pace that is comfortable for them, provided that it is not attacked by the analyst's narcissistic interpretations.
However, regarding the treatment of schizoids, the clinical literature speaks of special requirements that go beyond the standard technique. First, the need to speak openly about the deepest things can be unbearably painful for them, and receiving an emotional response to their words can lead to an overflow of feelings, and therefore the therapeutic interaction may be interspersed with periods of calm awareness of the patient's feelings that have arisen. I once had a patient who struggled every session with herself trying to say anything, finally she called me and through tears said: “I want you to know that I really want to talk to you.” , but it hurts so much.” We made therapeutic progress in a less traditional way: I read to her excerpts from accessible, non-pejorative works that described the psychology of schizoids, and then asked if the descriptions fit what she was feeling. I hoped that this would help her cope with her painful attempts to articulate and describe feelings that she found incomprehensible to others and viewed as symptoms of serious madness leading to loneliness. She said it was the first time she knew there were people like her.
A schizoid cannot directly describe his mental suffering from isolation, and does this through images from films, stories or poems. An empathetic therapist working with such clients will often initiate or respond to the client's conversations about music, painting, theater, literary metaphors, anthropological discoveries, historical events, religious beliefs or spiritual teachings. Unlike obsessive patients, who avoid emotions through rationalization, schizoid patients can express affect as soon as they find suitable way. Art therapy has long become the most popular type of therapy for schizoids due to its transitory function for their feelings and conditions.
Secondly, attentive clinicians have long noticed that schizoids have a kind of radar for recognizing insincere behavior, games and lies. For this reason, the analyst needs to be more “real” with them in the therapeutic process. Unlike clients who happily use information about the therapist to make subsequent demands or fuel processes of idealization and devaluation, schizoid patients accept such self-disclosures from the analyst with great gratitude and treat their privacy and space with even greater respect. One patient wrote: “People with a schizoid personality type feel more comfortable with those who are in harmony with themselves, are not afraid to show their weaknesses and seem like ordinary mortal people. I'm talking about a relaxed and informal atmosphere in which interlocutors know that people tend to make mistakes, lose control of themselves, act like a child or crazy. In such an environment, a person who is very sensitive by nature can become more open and not waste energy trying to be someone else and hide his differences from others.” (“Mitmodedet” (pseudonym), 2002, p. 190)
One day she came in and started talking about how she had just eaten at a pizzeria nearby... We started discussing pizzerias on the West Side, agreeing that Sal's was the best place. Then we moved on to pizzerias in Manhattan. We exchanged information and both seemed to enjoy the conversation. This situation is a serious departure from the traditional analytic session. On a deeper level (unconscious), each of us began to learn something very important about the other. Each of us knew where we could have a snack on the run, what it was like to try to drown out the feeling of hunger with something, at least for a while. This feeling of hunger had to be hidden from others so that they would not become aware of its all-consuming power. Talking about pizza became a kind of bridge for creating an alliance; our similar feelings gave rise to a stage in which the patient was able to verbalize her past and future. Our conversations about pizza became a haven for her where someone could understand her.
I would also like to say a few words about the danger of replacing real relationships with therapeutic ones in the therapy of a schizoid, since in them he receives a comfortable space for self-expression. Many therapists who have worked with schizoid individuals for several months or years have felt great pleasure in working with them, and then suddenly remembered that the patient originally came with a request to create deep relationships in the outside world, and there is still no sign of their emergence . Since the line between a supportive presence and gentle nudging can be very fine, one must be skillful in encouraging the patient to change without being perceived as impatience or criticism, as it was in his early childhood. If the therapist nevertheless “coincides” with the client’s early figures, then he should be patient in order to contain the patient’s pain and rage from repeating the experience of toxic interaction.
Final Recommendations
While writing this article, I felt like I was an ambassador for a community that prefers not to be personally involved in public activities. It is always interesting to observe which psychoanalytic works become the property of the professional community, and which remain in the shadows. On the one hand, Harry Guntrip's work has contributed as much to the understanding of the structure of the schizoid personality as Freud's work on the Oedipal complex or Kohut's work to the understanding of narcissism; namely, she told the general public about this type of people, removing the stigma of shame and negativism from them. And yet, even the most experienced psychoanalysts are unfamiliar or indifferent to analytical reflections on the characteristics of the schizoid personality. I believe that for obvious reasons, no author who deeply understands schizoids has the desire to begin some kind of popularization of his views, since this directly contradicts the very uniqueness of each schizoid.
Since analysts are interested in the schizoid personality, I assumed that somewhere, in parallel with me, someone was writing an article about them. George Atwood once said that debates about "existence" multiple personality(dissociative identity disorder) are remarkably consistent with the internal dialogue of a traumatized person with dissociative psychology: “Do I really remember this or am I making it up? Was it real or was it my imagination?” It is as if the entire vast mental health community, being in the opposite position to the dissociative personality, begins to experience a vast unconscious countertransference reflecting the processes that are occurring in the patient they choose to describe. Similarly, one could assume that our attempt to push schizoids to the edge of the attention of the professional community reflects the internal processes of schizoid individuals in an attempt to interact with us and other people.
I believe that the psychoanalytic community both understands and does not understand schizoid people. We were able to look into their innermost inner world through the prism literary works, but, as in the therapeutic process, we note emerging insights without realizing or accepting them. Many of the discoveries of the most daring researchers in this field were often attributed to pathological manifestations. Some patients who turn to us for help actually have pathological variants of schizoid dynamics. Others, including those who never seek help, are high functioning and demonstrate adaptive behavior. In this work, I tried to consider the features of the schizoid personality, which are neither bad nor good, nor more or less mature, nor an obstacle or success in personality development. They are who they are and that should simply be appreciated and acknowledged.
- His main feature- a tendency to theorize.
Wow! 100% hit, you don’t have to read further. I even wrote in my resume: “the disadvantage is the predominance of theoretical thinking over practical thinking.” (which, by the way, implies the importance of the process, not the result).
- they are “scholarly crackers”. This is Cousin Benedict from "The Fifteen Years Old Captain"
I must say that it was like this for quite a long time, even at the beginning of college. However, the Internet, literature, working on oneself, and most importantly - of course, the desire to have sex - did their dirty deed.
- They feel sleepy during the day. Daytime life requires a lot of energy, but at night, when life calms down, they can work for a long time - reading, writing. Therefore, their sleep is often inverted: they sleep during the day and work at night.
I only overcome this habit in my family life. And then when my wife is not at home, like now - it’s already half past midnight, and I’ve just loaded up on books and am reading...
- They don’t have enough energy to put basic order on the table, in the apartment, they don’t have enough energy to organize their sex life. A schizoid can be sexually lonely not because no one needs him, but because for this he needs to develop some kind of activity.
100%. There is no order and there never will be, because what the heck. With sex it’s more difficult - sex isn’t a big deal, but “looking for someone, going somewhere” - it’s always been mysterious to me, why? By the way, this also includes the fact that almost right off the bat I started a relationship, got married, and only at the age of 25 - there is potential, there is simply no one to realize it for and there is no desire;-)
- But if it comes to the theoretical constructions they love, they will clash in a verbal duel.
I really like to argue. Adore. Hence FIDO loved, and (I confess) ru.rock.club.
- Often the aggressiveness of a schizoid manifests itself precisely in humorous creativity directed at people for any reason.
Again ru.rock.club. In general, intellectual banter is one of the signs of a schizoid, apparently. Again I repent.
- Aggressiveness is also manifested in the fact that the schizoid, although not vindictive, is vindictive. More precisely, he is vindictive, although not vindictive. Revenge requires energy.
That's for sure. I remember the bad things well, but I will never do anything about it.
- And to clarify, in science he is a theorist and in sex he is more likely to get to the necessary literature and compare his ideas with it.
Citizens! Watch porn films, and everything will be OK with sex in your family! ;-)
- In the chapter on energy, I said that a schizoid does not have enough strength to put things in order on his own table and in his apartment. Let's continue this interesting topic of schizoid psychology.
A VERY interesting topic;-))) But I won’t give this chapter, its schizoid needs to be read and tried on in its entirety;-)
- A schizoid rarely uses office equipment. A pencil and paper is all he needs.
(I will clarify as a schizoid) What is meant here is that a schizoid is looking for a solution in thinking and theorizing, he does not need the organization of a “work area” to work.
- for the schizoid himself, the master of disorder, in this disorder everything is in its place. Moreover, thanks to his tenacious memory, he perfectly remembers what is where.
I have always attributed this to the advantages of “spatial-visual” memory, but perhaps it is a sign of a schizoid?
- Most often, things lie around the closet, scattered around the apartment.
No comments. Although... a wife is a sure way to re-educate a schizoid;-) True, a wife may not demand anything, but this is not a reason to upset her by throwing things around.
- The schizoid’s dirty dishes are dumped in the sink and are not washed while there is still at least one clean plate.
It was like this for a very long time. But, I recommend to all schizoids - re-educate. Feel the washing process as a “process”, as the pleasure of washing every single plate. In general, now my mother-in-law is driving me away from the plates, but I still wash them ;-)
- A schizoid has problems with articulation, which causes poor diction.
This is my long-standing illness, shortcoming. Very, very bad. What can I say - the lack of energy of a schizoid is also manifested in the fact that he opens his mouth just enough so that at least something can be heard.
- A person is afraid that he will be interrupted, that he will not be understood. This is not stuttering yet, but logoneurosis.
By the way, yes, sometimes I was scared myself, so similar to stuttering is some kind of instinctive desire to speak faster, so that the first syllable is repeated several times until the thought is formed and pours into a phrase.
- It happens that the face is simply inactive - this is hypomimia.
Now everything is easier, after all, my beloved has a very ennobling effect on me, and for some time now (several years) I myself have considered this a drawback. Therefore, I practically got rid of the motionless face and gaze into nowhere.
- A limp, flat, lifeless palm is presented for a handshake. Exquisite movement of fingers.
Two opposites, in the sense - I always shake hands very energetically, but I really move my fingers a lot and in different ways;-)
- Due to dysplasticity of the motor sphere, the schizoid dances poorly and does not strive for it.
Thank God, kickboxing taught me flexibility, a sense of balance and movement. And yes, he was probably an angular boy. But even now I don’t like to dance and I feel a sense of unnaturalness when I try (exceptions are free flight to King Crimson ;-) But in general, this image of an awkward professor does not suit me.
- Sloppyness. It is striking, as is the dysplasticity of movements. It manifests itself in everything: in the apartment, in clothes, in hairstyle, in the way you hold your hands...
That's for sure, in everything. His wife’s influence weakened slightly, and Seryozha returned to disorder, sloppy clothes, and generally began to return to his primitive state.
- A schizoid condemns exaggerated cleanliness, it is a burden to him: this is not a spiritual principle.
GIGGGY! What did you want, why do we need clean shoes if we are smart and spiritual? Why are you laughing, I thought so until I was 20 years old, and even now I feel an irresistible urge to think so.
- schizoid psychotype is normal [takes a bath] - once a week.
Well, thank God they taught me to wash at least once a day. After sex;-) But it’s scary to think, what if there was no sex? Would people (schizoids) really walk around unwashed?
- In general, the “body relief” is less pronounced (flat buttocks, small breasts). ... flat feet.
This is where I got lucky. Broad shoulders, a well-defined figure, and the buttocks are also fine (the chest is also fine;-). True, flat feet, of course.
- [Facial asymmetry] The chin is pushed forward or is too small. There may be an incorrect bite.
I didn’t look closely at the rest, but this - yes. In general, some of the lower jaw is incorrect, it doesn’t even open well.
- In the introduction, having mentioned the schizoid, we immediately drew the reader’s attention to the fact that his button may be dangling on two threads.
Oh, maybe. Don’t even doubt it... There’s a lot more, but the summary is short - “In general, a schizoid is indifferent to clothes and is ten years behind fashion.” Dot.
- In a schizoid it is better to describe it with the word “none.” There is no hairstyle as such.
In short, my way of combing my hair is to wash my head, after which the wet hair is smoothed with my fingers. All. Thank God, washing your hair (as well as washing in general) is scientific.
- What animal does a schizoid look like? Most likely, like an intellectual mongrel.
What a blow to all proud schizoids...
- A schizoid’s home is usually poor. It contains only what is needed for intellectual creativity.
I must say, this is all about a lonely schizoid. A lonely schizoid is an extremely low-energy creature, occupied exclusively with intellectual pursuits. In short, “You need to get married, master.”
- [story about a schizoid film scriptwriter] The most picturesque spot was a half-broken telephone set glued together with duct tape.
Electrical tape is a great thing; every schizoid worships it. Without the slightest effort She does any kind of work, from driving thin dowels into the wall to gluing newspapers during repairs. It’s ugly, of course, but it works, and it doesn’t interfere with thinking ;-)
- Initially, a schizoid has many minor or more significant bodily imperfections, which determine his inferiority complex.
An inferiority complex is what a schizoid is, and you do this and that...
- at night, the demands of life are minimized, and schizoids have enough of their low energy to work a lot - read, write, think.
No comments.
- The schizoid doesn’t know how to cook. If he lives in a family and is fed, then he is not too picky about food, is not a gourmet, does not attach importance to how tasty it is prepared: this is not spiritual food.
What can I say - food should be nutritious, this is its main task. I adore healthy food - porridge, salads, soups, as well as nutritious meat - all kinds of meat... And my sister almost told jokes about my “lack of labor” in cooking. I’d rather quickly make unleavened oatmeal and eat it with pleasure - after all, I didn’t waste time and was nourished for the further process of reading, etc...
- Schizoids become drunkards and fall into chronic alcoholism. They drink themselves to death both alone and in the company of intellectual drinking buddies.
This, I'm afraid, will be interesting for my wife to read. But in my case, this does not matter at all - just as I will always wash my hair, because that’s how I was raised, I will also never drink, this is ingrained in childhood.
- Schizoids are interested in complex, serious music - classical or modern, but serious.
Hehe. Schizoids of all countries, let's go to ProgFest ;-) Hehe.
- does not set goals and does not achieve them. Something seems interesting to him - he does it.
It seems (?) it has already been said that a schizoid is interested in the process, he is not interested in the result. Personally, I am no longer interested in a mentally solved problem, even if without practical implementation all this makes no sense. I know how to do it - that means I've already done it. P.S. But I definitely MUST know - this is the meaning of a schizoid’s life.
- This “something” may turn out to be productive, then he tenses up and sets a certain task. He still sets some small goals, he can’t do without them completely, but not big long-term goals.
It's true. Family life for six months maximum, the rest is just the general outline. But I just don’t understand how you can set global goals if in six months it’s completely unknown what will happen. Well, I set goals, and then my salary was increased 3 times, or is there some kind of relocation...?
- Schizoids do not develop a program of action, but create for themselves freely... they can delve into a topic, in books, in papers, in transactions, combining, rearranging, admiring, making extracts, losing them, reproducing them again, and at the same time forgetting about time.
That's for sure. And programming helps. At one time I kept a collection of my programs, opened it, read the source code, admired it...
- behavior is not volitional, but field behavior, his activity depends on what falls into the field of his attention.
I would still say that this does not mean a lack of will. This is a lack of desire to manifest it; there are no reasons for which it would be worth doing something. In this regard, family, a loved one - very, very good for a schizoid;-)
- A schizoid is not an epileptoid. For him, the feeling of homeland is less important than belonging to thinking humanity. For him, science is more important than achievements in his own country. ...they are creating weapons there against their homeland. But not only for the sake of higher pay. The main thing for them is to do science...
That's for sure. It's time to go to the States.
- (The concept of sin. I will quote this paragraph in its entirety.) In a schizoid it is practically absent. He criticizes everything, doubts it, he is a skeptic. He does not believe in anything without verification, without scientific understanding. He knows a lot, so he always has psychological excuses and explanations for any prohibitions. And sin is a violation of a prohibition, for which it is difficult to find a reasonable justification. Therefore, the schizoid speculatively approves of any liberties, including sexual ones, this is an experiment on himself, as well as any scientific risks: cloning, transplantology, etc. We are already disentangling their discoveries in the field of nuclear energy. Despite all this, the schizoid does not repent, because he does not consider any of his actions to be a sin.
I propose to cross out the last two sentences, because I have never created nuclear weapons, I do not intend to, and in general I have a conscience.
I can say one thing - religion, traditions, society, and other nonsense - this is not for schizoids. However, morality is good, because it is logically explainable and is recognized by schizoids. But saying “DDT rules” in ru.rock.club is fanaticism and is punishable;-)
- And the schizoid himself generates all the alternatives. In the course of his thoughts, a schizoid has many different options. He does not discard them, but develops them. If something contradicts his original thought, he will be more interested in this contradiction than in defending the original thought.
Brief summary - unlike other types, the schizoid loves alternatives. He is interested in them, and if they are not there, he will come up with them himself. Thinking through a question from all idiotic angles is a schizoid’s favorite pastime. By the way, in relationships, he always comes up with a bunch of different options for the development of events...
- for a schizoid - rather paralogisms (unconscious manipulations). Or not even, it’s more like admiring a contradiction: on the one hand - on the other hand...
And if this is so, and if that... everything is purely theoretical.
- A schizoid has a free thinking process: he creates naturally, like a bird sings, unsystematically... He develops [by-products of the task], delves into details, buries himself in trifles - and forgets about the goal. ... This was satirically depicted by Gogol in Dead Souls. At the end of the poem, the home-grown philosopher Kifa Mokievich appears, who asked the question: “Well, what if an elephant was born in an egg, because the shell, tea, would be very thick, you couldn’t pierce it with a cannon; you need to invent some new firearm.”
Damn, that's interesting! About the egg and the cannon;-) Now I understand why my father always ironically called me a “philosopher”;-)
- there is a great dispersion in its associative ranks. A schizoid will give you a great many associations. Thinking... haphazard. ...affects absolutely everything. It is not purposeful.
Of benefit, examples are given - “an apple fell - the theory of gravity was born. Water splashed out - how to find the amount of gold in a tiara.” Among the minuses is the phrase “it turns out: schizoids have a “porridge” on their heads, in their heads and in their mouths.”
- the mental [and active] process depends on what comes into the field of attention.
Repetition is the mother of learning. This is one of our main features, as has already become clear.
- will not deliberately cheat, but will find loopholes in the law for himself or his client. This schizoid is a good find for scoundrels, he is generally unprincipled
Hm. Well, finding logical loopholes is always interesting.
- A schizoid does not care deeply about contradictions in his concepts..
So. The schizoid, as already mentioned, is interested in the process - thinking, evidence. And if today he proves that “Cinema is pop,” and tomorrow that “Cinema is power,” then it’s even more interesting for him to look at the problem from different angles.
- most often his ideas are considered as fantasies that no one needs right now.
As well as himself ;-)
- Due to critical thinking, a schizoid is difficult to suggest.
Or it doesn’t give in at all. Because you prove it first ;-)
- This also explains the fact that a schizoid is rather irreligious
I very much doubt that there are religious schizoids. Except theologians ;-)
- Philosophy and schizoid - “twin brothers”,
It's just boring...
- The process of creative thinking is continuous...
And sometimes you just want to sleep... But your thoughts are still seething. But traveling in public transport is not boring ;-)
- That’s why he often creates “for the table”, doesn’t show it to anyone: he’s interested, that’s all.
I also play the guitar - I’ve already recorded a decent amount, but again from the series - I played it, can I play it? Well, great, why polish the recording, I can listen to it anyway and hear how I can play it. “As a last resort, the schizoid believes, a meticulous historian of science will pull out the tomes into the light of day and find there the diamonds of his schizoid ideas.”
- The main thing in the work of a schizoid is paradox. “It seemed so, but it turned out so!” And it seemed to the majority
The schizoid loves to question what seems to the majority. Therefore, watching TV with him can be unbearable ;-)
- loves to rummage through books
Nowadays there is much less time, but in childhood... In general, books are our everything. But I don’t work through notes in the margins, no. Why, I’ll remember... (alas, I don’t remember. But that doesn’t interest me ;-)
- A schizoid rummages through books when there is nothing to do. But he always has nothing to do, so he constantly rummages through books.
LOL, I just can’t. This is an accurate description of a schizoid; he always has nothing to do.
- The erudition of a schizoid concerns areas far from everyday problems. He won't tell you where to buy anything or how much it costs.
But Seryozha, until he was 22 years old, did not know where Victory Square and the House of Officers were located in Minsk...
- tenacious mechanical memory. He remembers every piece of paper... he put it in such and such a folder... his semantic memory is especially good. ... remember, for example, phone number 354-70-61, it will build a whole system: 354 is 3, 4, 5; only 4 swapped places with 5; and 6 and 1 are in the middle between 7 and 0, with 6 next to 7 and 1 next to 0.
It's true. “The problem can be easily solved by introducing 11 additional planes” if we know what these planes are;-) I don’t remember the numbers at all (many people think that programmers are obliged to remember them;-), but if we connect them with logic...
- A schizoid person generally lives not reflexively, but reflexively. He reasons
Instincts are weakly expressed; he thinks first, then acts. Or he doesn’t, just what he thought is enough ;-)
- He cannot build a relationship simply, without thinking, he definitely thinks about it.
Yes, he thinks, and comes up with ideas, and in general... Moreover, by inertia, as in everything else. (“One schizoid intellectual showed me the curves of his relationships with employees, relatives and friends.”)
- Schizoids often have inferiority without complexes. He doesn't really care about his shortcomings
If they don't bother him.
- The mental defense of a schizoid is poorly developed, he is easily wounded. ... Psychiatrists have an expression in relation to the schizophrenic defect “the phenomenon of wood and glass.” This means emotional insensitivity and at the same time vulnerability. Something similar is observed in schizoids. A schizoid person, being emotionally not very responsive, but at the same time vulnerable, can defend himself sarcastically.
Something like. It seems like it hurts you, but at the same time you don't care. Those. as with shortcomings - they are unpleasant, but I don’t care either ;-) Vulnerability is on the inside, but on the outside “a schizoid is smart and witty” in response to wounds.
- they communicate selectively - with those who understand their spiritual needs... they prefer loneliness... let them not pay attention to me, and I don’t pay attention.
- When alone, he often masturbates, experiencing loneliness itself
This is funny for you, but you know how difficult it all is! ;-)
- “prefer solitude”, didn’t mean “love solitude”... would be happy to communicate, but don’t trust many people
That's for sure. With close people and with strangers - two completely different people.
- A schizoid rarely resorts to lies in his life... why lie? His pleasure is in thinking; he doesn’t need to fuss.
And really, why lie? Vanity of vanities... And yet, lying has a very negative effect on the intellectual aura of a schizoid. Schizoids still love evidence, truth, and logic. And lying is some kind of act that openly violates the foundations of the universe.
- You can generally trust him, but he can just get worked up and forget.
- You shouldn’t expect any special gratitude from him, he’s a bit dry.
Well, here I don’t even know. There is only one person who can expect gratitude from me - my wife, because I cannot thank her enough for the fact that she exists in the world at all! And so, I don’t even know why I never feel special gratitude... However, I myself never expect gratitude. Unless, again, only from a loved one. This is probably due to the fact that people do not seem to exist for a schizoid, they are not important.
- Justice, kindness - unemotional, formal, abstract.
A schizoid does not cry or be touched. He is kind or just because he believes that justice and kindness are right.
- Schizoid... like a Fichtean solipsist. The German philosopher Fichte brought the idea of subjective idealism to the point of absurdity: if everything around me exists only in my sensations, then only I am real (solus in Latin, “the only one”)
HAHAHA! And I came up with this back in college in philosophy classes. And I still consider myself a subjective idealist. Or rather, as it turned out, I am the spitting image of a Fichtean solipsist.
“He doesn’t feel another person, doesn’t pick up on someone else’s mood, doesn’t sense a clearly hostile attitude towards himself.
It always seemed like everything was fine...
- He is easier with animals than with people
As it is written - “no worries, no need to fuss, but everything is a living creature”...
- Intellectual nonconformism - not like everyone else, does not follow fashion, does not strive for wealth, and neglects etiquette.
“Is it possible to think about the structure of the world and at the same time think about etiquette?” A?
- The humor is meaningful, not slapstick. Often, alas, black.
Why "alas"? ;-)))
- will not tell his child that he was “done with his finger.” His black humor is more sophisticated: “It turns out that it’s in the dampness that turns on...” And this is “loving”, because it implies that, they say, how lovely you are
But my wife is offended by dark humor... But I love it. After all, you are so lovely!
In general, the joke is great, I love it!!!
- To see the funny, you need to have this kind of thinking.
Yes, the jokes of schizoids can be a little incomprehensible... even to them.
- schizoid produces humor
As opposed to quoting (although I personally love telling jokes)
- does not chase money, especially big ones: for this you need to catch, lie, steal, kill
Exactly what. Those. money is a good thing, and it’s great when you can easily earn it. But lie, steal? Bribes, illegality? No really.
- Suffering. This is also a manifestation of life for him. You have to try everything
Life is interesting in everything, yes.
- the furniture is loose, he will shake it himself.
This is exactly how many chairs died the death of the brave...
- But more often the schizoid simply works, becomes a Master, and is promoted.
Well, good. We will strive for this, and not for the Ministry of Taxation at the expense of the state.
- Power and schizoid are often “incompatible.” He does not seek power and tries not to submit to power. passive oppositionist
None of this interests me in the slightest. Unless you study it.
- They make accountants and economists and, of course, theoretical scientists of various profiles. But not entrepreneurs.
I will never, never become an entrepreneur. And then thank God.
- teaching is not their profession.
How so? My diploma says “teacher!” ;-)
- As a rule, a schizoid does not take pseudonyms.
Including on Fido/Internet. Queen3 is basically a "enter a nickname" request. I just had to come up with a nickname sometime.
- For a schizoid, sex is speculative; sex for them is not usually a continuation of love.
They are, of course, related. But still, love is in itself.
- Sexual liberties are speculatively approved by schizoids, this is an experiment on oneself, what a sin there is. So in a heterosexual couple, the sex of a schizoid is “inventive”, sophisticated
Well, so what, it’s interesting.
- Sex with a schizoid before marriage - occasionally, infrequently
In general, for the following reasons: 1) you have to look for it, 2) it’s difficult to find a person with whom you can become sufficiently close intellectually and spiritually
- strives for solitude, during which from time to time he resorts to masturbation with complicated mental fantasies that cover many things: fetishism (panties are more important than genitals), the presence of a third person, scenes of the realization of the Oedipus complex (in women - the Electra complex).
Well, no comments about masturbation. But in general, yes, fantasies are complicated, fetishism is present (I repeat - only in fantasies, not in life, like other “perversions”)...
- a schizoid does not care about his family. Children are abandoned at home..But it may happen that a child for a schizoid is also an object of creativity: you can teach him,
Thank God this is my case. I'm interested in children.
- Relationships with other psychotypes
I read it as “Relationships with other psychopaths” ;-)
- It happens that in the process of schizoid intellectual “free floating” and against the background of success, a certain sense of purpose arises.
Well, it happens that a schizoid also finds a place for his aimless intellectualism. Long live the computer!
- The father delves into the mechanisms or writes his “philosophy” - and the son has nothing else left. So intellectual cockroaches breed, restless, unkempt, unadapted.
What an image! It’s good that I’m a callous and sarcastic schizoid, but if I were vulnerable, I would be offended;-) FIDO has hardened;-)
- Schizoids are the mind of humanity.
Just like that!
- He mainly looks for books, tries to understand himself and his relationships, but willingly goes to live [psychological] counseling
This is for sure, books, the Internet and Fido help a lot, if not to understand (it’s impossible without education), then at least to feel the direction in which to move.
- Do not try to move tables alone
Why do I always carry furniture, tables, etc. by oneself?
In general, there is a lot written about the clumsiness of schizoids - I didn’t notice... Still, I am friends with objects, and I love and feel my body.
