Schizotipal Personality Disorder is a personality disorder whereby the person suffering from it tends to be a loner. Such people find it very uncomfortable to be in the presence of a group of people. Their behavior is very eccentric and is characterized by odd speech patterns. They have their own perception of the world around them and their behavior usually confuses others. They believe in magical powers and think that they can use them to influence others. They believe in the sixth sense and feel that they can predict events before they occur. They interpret other people’s behavior in their own ways and always feel that all are planning to harm them. They are often seen shifting from one activity to another aimlessly. In their speech they focus on trivial details, digress from the main topic and appear very confused in their discussion.
The typical features of this disorder are:
Belief in cognitive, telepathic or magical powers.
Inaccurate interpretation of other people’s behavior. Most of the times assigning malicious connotations to all actions of others directed towards self.
Eccentric speaking style most of the times digressing from the main topic towards vague or trivial points.
Paranoid behavior
Uncontrollable anxiety when exposed to social contact.
Fondness for being solitary.
Passive emotional responses to situations and indifference.
Dependence on only close relations usually parents. Lack of trust on others hence they do not have close friends.
Experiencing bodily illusions and associating the sense of bodily touch to pain etc. Distorted perceptions of other social activities.
The problem with these people is that unlike normal people they have not been able to develop the understanding of the correct interpretation of social cues and their intentions. The cause of this disorientation in interpretation has been attributed to be both genetic and environmental causes though the exact reason is still not known. It is believed that the onset of such symptoms is triggered due to humiliating experiences in childhood leading to low self esteem. Usually such children do not fare well in their school and hence are a target of bullying and humiliation. People who have first relatives suffering from this problem or had schizophrenia have higher chances of developing this problem.
This can hence be avoided by providing such high-risk people with a caring and emotionally motivating environment. Because of the fact that this problem aggravates with age, it is good to diagnose it at an early stage and try to provide an environment which will reduce the occurrence of the symptoms.
