Psychotherapy of Schizoid Process

This article is an excellent overview not only of true schizoid personality disorder, which is a Cluster A “eccentric” disorder, but also the the schizoid process so prevalent in our society, most often as the shutdown many men experience or strategically use to protect themselves emotionally. In the full-blown disorder, the shutdown can present as the extreme of “autistic encapsulation.”

“Splitting” in women is more often manifest in the Cluster B category, as borderline personality disorder, which often comes with histrionics and other attention-seeking surface ploys and manipulation rather than the overt emotional shutdown characteristic in schizoid process.

I’ve experienced relationships with both borderline types and schizoid types. They are extremely difficult to deal with. They cannot be helped by a nonprofessional. It is best to walk away and pray for them from a distance.

This article illuminates the psychology side of what I write here about how meditation practice and attainments can actually worsen schizoid, sending the person (usually a man) up in his or her head, out of the body and feelings. These practitioners may celebrate the achievement of no-self, which for them is dissociation, not understanding that true enlightenment is about being whole.

See my related post, “The Risks of Masculine Practice Paradigms.”

Ironically, healthy ego functioning is a prerequisite for realizing true no-self, or as I prefer to put it, openness and interdependence of self.