Psychology and Psychiatry: Open access
Open Access

Explaining the basis to formation of Schizoid Personality Disorder using object relations theory and Bowlby’s Attachment Styles

Copyright: © 2017  . This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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This paper involves drawing inferences regarding a schizoid personality disorder from the point of views of both Object relations theory and the attachment theory. Using Object relations theory is an effective way to explain this personality make-up because those affected with schizoid personality disorder suffer with the inability to look at a person as having both good and the bad sides. Thus often resulting in fear of relationships and intimacy. Those with Schizoid personality disorder learned early on from childhood that no one is to be relied on and that it would be a mistake to pursue intimacy with anyone because to them they all will inevitably abandon them. They cannot accept both the good and the bad sides of a person. Not wanting to be left by them, schizoids prefer to leave themselves when the bad sides show up. The ability to tolerate and accept both the pleasant and unpleasant sides of an individual has to do with developing Object constancy and Object Permanence. Hence the necessity to study Object relations theory. This paper refers to the object relations theory developed through the contributions put forth by Harry Guntrip, Margaret Mahler, Heinz Kohut, Melanie Klein and Karl Abraham. Additionally, Schizoid personality has to do with the attachment with the caregiver. Using both Bowlby’s attachment theory and Mary Ainsworth’s strange situation experiment as a reference, This paper explains how the basis for Insecure- Avoidant behavior is formed in children, which in turn could develop schizoid personality in their adulthood. Children with this personality tend to form detached lifestyles that require little to no social contact with others. Some research has been done in this regard wherein researchers studied the personality disorders from the basis of attachment styles. Research has also been done by looking at the relationships between object relations theory and the underlying phenomena which result in certain personality disorders, in this case Schizoid Personality Disorder (SPD). This contributes to better understanding of the condition and better treatment for the schizoids.

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