Relationships are messy

Relationships are messy” is one of the maladaptive schema’s which underlie schizoid personality disorder .

First of all, what is a personality disorder?

A personality disorder is defined as an enduring pattern of inflexible and maladaptive thinking, feeling and acting that causes significant distress and/or impairment in social/occupational functioning.

Schizoid personality disorder , together with paranoid personality disorder and schizotypal personality disorder forms cluster A of the DSM-IV( The diagnostic and statistical manual -IV. A document published by the American Psychiatric association to diagnose and classify mental disorders)

Individuals with schizoid personality disorder are characterized by various traits. They are usually unable to form social relationships and even lack the interest to form social relationships.

Therefore they lack good friends with the possible exception of close relatives. They are unable to to express their feelings and are therefore seen by others as cold ad distant.

These individuals also lack social skills and can be classified as loners or introverts. They take interest in solitary activities and occupations and tend to not take pleasure in activities such as sexual activity.Hence, rarely marries .

This group of people are not emotionally active.They rarely experience strong positive and negative emotions. Instead, displays a generally apathetic mood ( showing or feeling no interest, enthusiasm or concern).

They show high levels of introversion and low levels of openness to feelings.

So what causes the schizotypal personality disorder? What are its causal factors?

Well, there are a few causal factors :

(1) According to early theorists, schizoid personality disorder is likely to be a precursor to the development of schizophrenia.

(2) Genetic tranmission

(3) Maladaptive underlying schema’s such as — “relationships are messy”

Though there isn’t one exact cause identified, it is still unknown to what exactly causes the disorder. Some research points out a contribution of a number of different causes working together at the same time to cause the disorder.

Picture credits-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C2z4GqqS5E