SCHIZOTYPIA: What it is, Symptoms and Treatment

Perhaps for years we asked ourselves the cause of many behaviors of our own and others, attributing them immediately and almost unconsciously to emotions. We hold expressions like "she is like that", "he is very angry", "he has always been like that", "he is very angry"... We manifest dozens of similar expressions but most likely we avoid the subject of traits personality, which are the starting point of the following article in Psychology-Online on the schizotypia: what is it, symptoms and treatment.

Index

1. What is schizotypy in psychology
2. Schizotypia and schizophrenia: differences
3. Schizotypia: symptoms
4. Schizotype: treatment

DSM 5 (2013) defines personality traits as persistent patterns of the way we perceive, we think and relate to the environment and ourselves, showing ourselves in a variety of social areas and personal. If you want to see an example, here you will find 10 personality traits.

A personality disorder it is a permanent pattern of internal experience and behavior that deviates considerably from the expectations or expectations of the individual's particular culture. In addition, a personality disorder is characterized by being a phenomenon that is not very flexible and stable in time that generally has an onset. recognizable in adolescence or early adulthood and results in clinically significant distress and social impairment and occupational.

Personality disorders manifest themselves in at least two of the following four areas:

1. Cognition.
2. Affectivity.
3. Interpersonal functioning.
4. Impulse control.

Synthesized, it could be said that a personality disorder is a permanent pattern of the way of thinking, behaving and feeling that is relatively stable over time.

Meaning of schizotypia

Schizotypia is a personality disorder characterized by social and interpersonal deficiencies and that are highlighted by acute / intense discomfort and reduced or no capacity for close relationships, also determined by obvious cognitive distortions and perceptual.

Schizotypia, even though it is a personality disorder, is mentioned in the chapter «Spectrum of schizophrenia and other disorders Psychotic »of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM 5, because it is considered part of the spectrum of schizophrenia and, according to the ICD-9 and ICD 10 (International Classification of Diseases), it is classified as a disorder of this section. But this personality disorder and schizophrenia have many differences.

The main characteristic that differentiates these two disorders are their symptoms, since psychotic symptoms are not present in schizotypal personality disorder persistent or also known as characteristic symptoms of the active phase (hallucinations and delusions, disorganized speech, catatonia), which are required for the diagnosis of a schizophrenia. Another of its differences is present in their classification, since schizophrenia is not a personality disorder like schizotypia is, a persistent pattern of behavior, affect and cognition, schizophrenia has as a requirement in its diagnostic criteria a duration six months (one month of active phase) of your symptoms, including periods of prodromal or residual symptoms.

Although these two pathologies are different and must be properly separated when establishing a diagnosis, they can also concur. For an additional diagnosis of schizotypal personality disorder, this disorder should have appeared long before psychotic symptoms began and must have persisted when psychotic symptoms send. Also a persistent / chronic mental disorder (in this case schizophrenia), can precede the schizotypal personality disorder and both can be diagnosed at the same time.

People diagnosed with schizotypal personality disorder generally have the following symptoms:

1. Reference ideas that Lawrence M. Porter (2005) describes it as “a phenomenon characterized by the experience of a person who, based on innocuous events or mere coincidences, believes that these always have a strong personal importance or a notion that everything she or he perceives in the world is related to their destiny. " They are usually superstitious or very concerned about events paranormal.
2. They tend to have magical beliefs or thoughts influencing behavior and inconsistent with subcultural norms (eg superstitions, belief in clairvoyance, telepathy, or a "sixth sense"; in children and adolescents, extravagant fantasies or worries). They may feel or have the full conviction that they possess special powers to perceive events before they occur or abilities to read the thoughts of others; Believing that they have magical control over other people (for example, believing that the partner or a close family member falls asleep as a result of a thought that they had an hour before).
3. Unusual perceptual experiences, including bodily illusions. Your speech may be imprecise, rambling, or vague.
4. Strange thought and speech.
5. They usually have paranoid ideas (for example the firm belief that co-workers intend to ruin or negatively affect your relationship with the boss).
6. Inappropriate affect where they are often unable to regulate their emotions and interpersonal skills that are necessary for a relationship.
7. They are often described or considered rare for their unusual gestures or behaviors and for that careless and messy way of dressing, they are also described this way due to their lack of interest to social expectations (for example avoids eye contact or wears torn and stained clothing, does not joke or share with those of the rest).
8. They describe and present a disinterest or discontent with intimate relationships and therefore they usually do not have friends or close people who are not first degree relatives.
9. They are usually very anxious in social situations, especially in those that involve the participation of unknown people.
10. They interact with other people only when they have to, but they prefer to be apart because you manifest feeling different or that they do not fit.
11. Your anxiety does not decrease even when the environment or people become more frequent or familiar, because their anxiety is often related to suspicion of the interests of others.

People diagnosed with schizotypal personality disorder generally seek treatment for the symptoms related to your anxiety or depression rather than the symptoms of the personality disorder itself same. These people can even present transitory psychotic episodes due to a high stress level lasting from minutes to hours.

Treatment of schizotypal personality disorder is generally offered with one or more types of psychotherapy (psychoanalytic or cognitive behavioral) using as an adjunct some psychotropic.

Psychotherapy can help diagnosed people to begin to trust other people and events by establishing a relationship of trust with the same psychotherapist. In the cognitive behavioral therapy CBT identifies and establishes the thinking patterns that are distorted and learned social skills.

Medications that are generally recommended or prescribed are antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, antidepressants, or anxiolytics, but it is advised in First, the use of SSRIs (sertraline, fluoxetine, venlafaxine) and atypical antipsychotics (risperidone, clozapine and olanzapine) due to their lower risk of effects extrapyramidal.

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to Schizotype: what it is, symptoms and treatment, we recommend that you enter our category of Personality.

• American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM 5). Editorial Panamericana.
• Lawrence M. Porter. (2005). Women's Vision in Western Literature. Praeger.