Schizotypal personality

People around them find them eccentric, strange and overly absorbed in their own inner world. Wary of others, such people try to stay apart even from those they have known for a long time. When interacting interpersonally, one notices their detachment, difficulty in consistently expressing their thoughts and feelings, as well as their inability to focus on one thing.

Expression of emotions may be scanty or inappropriate to the situation. Often these people have strange beliefs that go against science — for example, they may believe that they have telepathic, psychic or prophetic abilities. They also experience illusions of perception: for example, they can think about a deceased relative, feeling as if the spirit of this person is currently next to him. They are often also distinguished by increased suspicion.

People who fit the description above are usually called schizotypal individuals . Most researchers are convinced that these personality traits have common roots with schizophrenia. Such people are capable of losing contact with reality, as if from time to time they were captured by waking dreams. Periodically, stimuli from the inner world overwhelm them and, clouding their minds, break out in the form of bizarre thoughts and actions.

An excursion into history.

Schizotypal personality disorder is a relatively new diagnostic entity that is so closely intertwined with the concept of schizophrenia that it is impossible to say for sure where the border between them lies.