All About Schizoid Personality Disorder

Schizoid personality disorder is one of 10 personality disorders identified in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). This is a reference handbook that most mental health professionals use to make diagnoses.

Personality disorders are grouped in three clusters based on the most dominant traits.

Schizoid personality disorder falls into cluster A. All conditions in this cluster are characterized by similar symptoms or behaviors and thoughts that are:

• odd
• eccentric or suspicious
• detached

Schizotypal and paranoid personality disorders are also cluster A conditions.

General signs of schizoid personality

In general, if you have schizoid personality disorder, you might be what others call a “loner.” This is because you usually keep to yourself and have no interest in seeking or keeping interpersonal relationships.

You’re not outwardly sad or concerned about not having social contact. This includes romantic and family relationships.

Sexual encounters or building a family might not be among your personal goals, either, because you don’t find any pleasure in these.

Because of all of this, you prefer solitary activities, for both fun and work.

In general, even though you’re clear on your lack of interest in relationships, you might not be aware of this as a problem, nor do you experience great distress from your solitude.

This is why you may not, at first, seek help from a mental health professional.

Schizoid personality disorder is usually first noticed in early adulthood, although some symptoms may be present during childhood.

The DSM-5 criteria to diagnose schizoid personality disorder involve a long-standing pattern of four or more of the following seven symptoms:

1. avoidance of close relationships, including family ties
2. preference for solitary activities
3. little, if any, interest in having sexual experiences with another person
4. time spent on few, if any, activities
5. lack of close friends or confidants
6. indifference to others’ opinions
7. emotional detachment, or flattened emotion

Not everyone with schizoid personality disorder will have all of these symptoms or in the same degree or intensity. At least four of them should be dominant over time and across different situations, though.

Also, many of us may display at least one schizoid personality disorder trait at some point in our lives, but this differs from a personality disorder in severity, frequency, and duration.

Below is a basic overview of schizoid personality disorder symptoms:

Avoidance of close relationships

If you have schizoid personality disorder, you may feel no desire at all to create or maintain close relationships and actively avoid them, even with members of your family.

In fact, intimately interacting with others could make you feel extremely uncomfortable. This may lead others to perceive you as aloof and avoid being around you, too.

Even though you prefer being alone and don’t want intimacy with others, you might still get a sense of frustration now and then when you sense others reject you or don’t understand you.

This isn’t enough for you to want to seek out an active relationship with them, though.

Preference for solitude

Since you’re not interested in interacting with people or having close relationships, you might choose solitary activities most of the time. If given the option, you’ll likely spend all of your time engaged in these activities instead of spending time with others.

This preference could take many forms. For example, you might come home after school and go straight to your room to play video games all night long. Or you could be surrounded by people but remain in your own world, indifferent to conversations and events around you.

Solitary activities don’t give you any sense of being cooped up or isolated. You might not feel sad about being by yourself; you choose to be.

You might run into occupational problems if your job requires you to work as part of a team or in direct contact with others. This is why you prefer, and can do well in, positions that can be performed solo or from home.

Lack of interest in sexual experiences

Although not the rule, if you have schizoid personality disorder, you could have zero interest in being sexual with others, or in general.

If you do have some interest, you might choose sexual experiences that don’t include another person. Maybe you have a very active fantasy life, even if you don’t act on your fantasies.

If there’s any sexual activity with another person, for you it’s not about intimacy or connection.

Excited by few activities

If you have schizoid personality disorder, you might not find joy or pleasure in many activities. You could perhaps choose to spend your time on one or two activities, like video games or puzzles, but always in solitude.

You probably consider yourself more of an observer of life, rather than an active participant.

You may often get absorbed in your own fantasies, which might seem more interesting to you than what’s going on around you. That’s another reason why you may be perceived as detached from people and situations.

Lack of close friends or confidants

Because of your lack of interest in being in a relationship and interacting with other people, you might find yourself with very few, if any, confidants other than perhaps a first-degree relative.

You might not date much or want to get married. If you do, you’re not interested in a close bond or establishing intimacy, sexual or otherwise.

Indifferent to other people’s opinions

You might be truly indifferent to praise or criticism from other people. This means that you usually don’t respond to people approving — or disapproving — of your behavior.

This could cause you social and personal problems because others might perceive you as self-absorbed and unreachable.

Flat affection and detachment

When you live with schizoid personality disorder, other people might describe you as humorless, cold, and inexpressive.

You might have a narrow range of emotions. You’re not likely to express any of them.

This may be because, when it comes to emotions, you don’t usually experience highs or lows. You might also have difficulty expressing any emotion at all in social settings. This, in turn, could translate into few facial expressions and a flat tone of voice.

If you’ve received a diagnosis of schizoid personality disorder, you may be wondering about the reasons why you have schizoid personality disorder.

There’s actually no consensus within the medical community regarding what really causes a personality disorder.

It’s commonly believed that it may be a combination of these factors:

• environmental influences
• cultural and social influences
• early life experiences
• childhood relationships
• genetics and biology

In the case of schizoid personality disorder, there might be a tendency to develop the disorder if there’s a first-degree relative who’s received a diagnosis of:

• schizoid personality disorder
• schizotypal personality disorder
• schizophrenia

But this doesn’t mean it happens every time.

Other research suggests that depression and severe loneliness during the early years of life are linked to the development of schizoid personality disorder. This could be associated with experiences of:

• abuse
• neglect
• rejection

Essentially, there’s not enough research on schizoid personality disorder specifically to fully understand or establish its causes and risk factors.

Schizoid personality disorder can be managed with the support of a professional.

Maybe you haven’t considered treatment for schizoid personality disorder. This isn’t uncommon.

You might not see yourself needing help with your emotions and behaviors, and you’re not interested in forming a working relationship with a therapist anyway.

But treatment can provide you the opportunity to gain insight into your lifestyle choices and improve the quality of your life.

Psychotherapy seems to be the most effective way to treat schizoid personality disorder. It can help you:

• become aware of your emotions and behaviors
• develop or strengthen social skills
• develop or strengthen cognitive skills
• improve self-esteem

Once you start therapy, you can set your own goals together with your therapist, depending on what you want to get out of your treatment.

Some of the psychotherapy approaches most used to manage schizoid personality disorder are:

• psychodynamic therapy
• cognitive behavioral therapy
• dialectical behavioral therapy

Medications are rarely used. When they are, it’s usually because there might be co-occurring conditions that might benefit from it.

Schizoid personality disorder and autism spectrum disorder are two different diagnoses.

Sometimes, autism can look like schizoid personality disorder. But this is a superficial comparison that often comes from a misconception of what both diagnoses imply.

Autism is a neurodevelopmental condition. It’s not a personality disorder. Autism can affect social interaction, among other things.

But an autistic person doesn’t necessarily prefer to be alone or avoid intimacy. They still have a desire to connect to others. This isn’t the case for someone with schizoid personality disorder.

A few mental health conditions share the prefix “schizo,” but they don’t necessarily overlap or have the same symptoms. In this case, schizoid personality disorder isn’t the same as schizophrenia.

The main difference between the two conditions is that people who have schizophrenia have persistent symptoms of psychosis, like hallucinations (seeing or hearing something that others don’t) or delusions (false beliefs).

These aren’t typical symptoms of schizoid personality disorder. People with schizoid personality disorder don’t experience distortions of reality.

Also, if you have schizoid personality disorder, you retain your ability to think abstractly, and can speak clearly and in an organized fashion. This may not be the case for people living with schizophrenia when they’re experiencing an episode.

Sometimes, before receiving a diagnosis of schizophrenia, a person might have received a diagnosis of schizoid personality disorder or another cluster A personality disorder at some point in their life. This is because they might share a few similar causes and social isolation symptoms.

In other words, in some cases, a cluster A personality disorder might precede or be the first sign of a future schizophrenia diagnosis.

This isn’t the rule, though, nor does it mean that a schizoid personality disorder diagnosis will always lead to or cause schizophrenia.

Both schizoid and antisocial personality disorders are mental health diagnoses, but each condition has its own diagnostic criteria and symptoms. There are many differences and very few, if any, similarities.

Antisocial personality disorder is, as its name indicates, antisocial. This means that there’s an intense dislike and contempt of all other people but no real desire to live in isolation.

There’s also a tendency in antisocial personality disorder to go against social norms, show aggressive behaviors, and lack remorse.

On the other hand, if you have schizoid personality disorder, you’re considered more asocial than antisocial. You have a lack of interest in interacting with others while not having strong emotions toward them.

There’s rarely ever impulsivity or destructive behaviors in schizoid personality disorder because you have no interest in connecting or harming others.

This is, of course, a fundamental comparison. There are other important differences between these two personality disorders. Only a mental health professional can make an accurate diagnosis.

Schizoid personality disorder is more likely to coexist with other types of personality disorders, like:

• paranoid
• avoidant
• schizotypal

But it’s rare to find overlapping symptoms between schizoid and antisocial personality disorders.

It’s a common misconception that people with some personality disorders are violent or dangerous.

There’s not enough scientific evidence to suggest there might be an increased risk of violent behavior if you have a schizoid personality disorder diagnosis compared with other personality disorders or no diagnosis at all.

The misconception might come from the confusion between schizoid and antisocial personality disorders or schizoid personality disorder and schizophrenia.

While there may be a tendency for violent behaviors in antisocial personality disorder and some cases of schizophrenia, there’s close to none in schizoid personality disorder.

In fact, because of a clear tendency to not experience and express strong emotions, if you have schizoid personality disorder, you rarely ever get angry or feel hatred, even when provoked.

In the few reported cases of violence in someone with schizoid personality disorder, it’s been likely related to co-occurring mental health conditions, not schizoid personality disorder itself.

Schizoid personality disorder is a chronic mental health condition characterized by eccentric, peculiar, and detached behaviors and thoughts .

Even though you might not feel motivated to pursue it, psychotherapy can help you develop or acquire social skills that, in turn, could improve your quality of life.