Personality and Personal Growth: Schizotypal Personality Disorder

Studying personality types tends to pull you in, partly because there is so much variation packed into them. Once you have a working sense of those variations, sketching out a personal development plan gets easier. Personality disorders are one of the things worth understanding here, and schizotypal personality disorder is one that rarely comes up in casual conversation. People living with it are frequently described as odd or eccentric by those around them.

Close relationships are uncommon for someone with this condition. Part of the reason is that they struggle to grasp how their own behavior registers with other people, and they are often unsure about what actually goes into building a relationship in the first place. Other people's actions and motives can read as threatening to them, which feeds a deep distrust. That pattern can spiral into serious anxiety, and in social settings a person may withdraw and retreat inward rather than engage.

There is no cure. Symptoms can ease somewhat as a person ages, though. Diagnosis usually lands in early adulthood, but hints of the condition sometimes surface earlier, around the early teen years.

One thing to keep straight: schizotypal personality disorder is not schizophrenia. They are separate conditions.

Symptoms tend to cluster around a handful of traits. Behavior or beliefs that strike others as unusual or peculiar. A conviction that one has telepathy or other special abilities. Social anxiety that is heavy and does not let up. Suspicious or paranoid thinking, with constant doubt about others' loyalty or faithfulness, along with a thin-skinned sensitivity. A tendency to read ordinary events the wrong way. Perceptual shifts, phantom pains being one example. Speech that comes across as odd, maybe rambling or vague when the person is simply trying to hold a conversation. Emotions that seem flat, or responses that do not fit the moment.

What causes it is still unknown, but researchers have working theories about who might be predisposed. During childhood a person normally learns, step by step, how to read and answer social cues. For someone who develops this condition, something interferes with that process, and the result can look like unusual thinking, beliefs that do not follow logic, or a sense of paranoia. Genetics are thought to play a part, as are differences in how the brain operates.

A couple of risk factors have been flagged. One is having a relative with the same disorder. Another is a childhood marked by trauma, abuse, neglect, or a dysfunctional family.

Getting a diagnosis starts with ruling out a physical explanation for the symptoms. If your doctor finds none, you move on to a mental health provider who checks your situation against the criteria in the DSM-5. That involves a series of psychological tests. To receive the diagnosis, the provider needs to see at least five relevant features, which can include suspicious or paranoid thoughts, behaviors that read as peculiar, magical thinking or strange beliefs, and odd patterns of speech and thought.

Treatment usually pairs more than one approach, aiming at the condition broadly while also targeting specific symptoms. Medication and psychotherapy carry most of the weight. No single drug exists for this disorder specifically, but antidepressants, antipsychotics, and anti-anxiety medications can help with the depression and anxiety that show up, and they can steady a person's mood. Psychotherapy works through conversation with your provider. You come to understand your symptoms and how they are affecting your health overall, and from there you build coping strategies that bring their severity down.

With that picture in mind, a personal development plan gives you a way to set goals around managing what you deal with day to day. Build those goals alongside your doctor, and make sure they speak to the needs tied to your personality type. Keeping symptoms in check matters for your growth more broadly, since they can get in the way of relationships and a steady career.

References: Mayo Clinic, schizotypal personality disorder; 123rf.com word cloud image.