This video takes a look at the difference between the primary and secondary schizoids. Who are they,
and why is there a need to make this type of distinction? The need for this distinction
comes from the fact that there are some people who are diagnosed with Schizoid Personality Disorder
(SPD) in the DSM-5, who do not relate to having the internal subjective experience of someone
who has a schizoid personality. This creates two types of people who are diagnosed with SPD: those
who relate to the internal subjective experience of the schizoid personality, and those who do not.
In order to identify as a schizoid personality, it's necessary to specify what a schizoid
individual actually is. The problem with the DSM-5 criteria for SPD is that it doesn't
include the subjective experiences within the inner world of a schizoid personality.
Being a schizoid individual means that we live primarily within our
inner world. By failing to include these aspects of our being, the DSM-5 criteria
fails to identify the core aspects and inner functioning of our personality.
What this means is that both schizoid individuals and those who relate to schizoid traits may
be diagnosed with Schizoid Personality Disorder. This brings us to the question:
what is a schizoid personality or schizoid individual? To answer this,
we need to find criteria that outline the schizoid subjective experience and inner state of being.
We find this by turning to psychoanalytic theory.
Harry Guntrip, a psychologist who studied schizoid phenomenology in great depth,
outlined the nine core traits of a schizoid individual. I've made a detailed video on this
topic, which I will link above. This criteria accounts for the inner subjective experience
of the schizoid individual. It looks at schizoid personality dynamics and, amongst other things,
it accounts for such things as schizoid defenses, the experience of emptiness, and the fact that we
have the potential to present as sociable and engaging to mask our schizoid traits.
Bearing everything that I've said in the video thus far,
it stands to reason that a person can be diagnosed with SPD who does not possess
all of the nine core schizoid traits and therefore does not particularly relate to
the schizoid subjective experience as explained in psychoanalytic theory. For ease of reference,
we will call these two types of people the primary schizoid and the secondary schizoid.
Before we take a deeper look at the primary and secondary schizoid,
we could look at how the schizoid personality or individual compares to that of the DSM-5 criteria.
Here we can see that the schizoid personality has some overlapping traits with those of both
avoidant and schizotypal personality disorders, as well as the DSM-5 SPD criteria. Additionally, it
contains traits related to the subjective internal experiences of schizoid individuals, which are not
specified in any of the DSM-5 disorders and would not qualify for a diagnosis in the current DSM.
The primary schizoid has developed trauma defenses towards the external world before the phase of
individuation was completed. This is in early infancy, before they've developed the sense of
being a person in their own right. Because these defenses were formed before conscious life began,
there are many schizoid individuals who won't remember any specific trauma. There
are also some schizoid individuals who remember negative events occurring in their childhood but
had defenses towards these negative events that mitigated the impact of their conscious
trauma. This is a complicated issue, and I'll be going into much more depth in future videos.
Depending on their ability to adapt to the world as a schizoid personality,
the life experiences, and the level of function they managed to attain over time,
a primary schizoid may go on to qualify for a SPD diagnosis. It's also possible for a
primary schizoid to go on to qualify for a Schizotypal PD diagnosis under
certain circumstances, which is also classed as a Cluster A personality disorder in the DSM-5.
While only some primary schizoids qualify for an SPD diagnosis, all secondary schizoids qualify for
SPD. Unlike primary schizoids, secondary schizoids develop psychological defenses to trauma that
occurred after the age of individuation. This means that they have successfully
passed through the individuation phase and developed into a person in their own right
before trauma ensues. Because they've already developed into a person in their own right,
this means that they're more likely to have experiences to draw upon more
consciously and to have taken the trauma personally, which has led to the formation
of defenses that have negatively impacted their desire to socialize with other people.
In this group, we have a diverse range of individuals who have developed defenses to
trauma at various different points in time after the phase of individuation,
under various circumstances, resulting in a wide range of psychological conditions leading to the
development of Schizoid Personality Disorder and a consequent diagnosis. Four common types of people
in the secondary schizoid group who have the propensity to develop SPD are those with Avoidant
Personality Disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, as well as CPTSD, autistic individuals,
and people who are considered to be misanthropic, but not necessarily diagnosed with a disorder.
According to terms primary and secondary schizoids to create two distinct schizoid categories,
this is required to differentiate between the SPD diagnosis schizoids who have an
internal subjective experience that aligns with psychoanalysis version of
a schizoid individual and those who don't. This will make future content much clearer
for those who wish to learn more about schizoid phenomenology in greater depth.
There's a lot more to the primary and secondary schizoid than I've included
in this brief introduction, and this is something that I'll be sharing with you in greater depth in
alignment with psychoanalytic theory. So this content will be featured in videos to come.