Neurosis, Psychosis, Border Guard

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Neurosis, psychosis, personality disorders, how does a schizoid differ from a person with a schizoid disorder, or in simple words of a schizophrenic, what is character, temperament, and if a person is structured, how can this be done? Let's talk about it?

And it is probably necessary to start with the concept of "temperament". Temperament is something that is considered innate and very rarely changes. Although I believe that temperament can be compensated for, for example, by character.

I think everyone knows that there are four types of temperament: choleric, sanguine, melancholic and phlegmatic. The first two types are characterized by fast excitation and slow inhibition, here the inhibition processes are much less than the excitation processes. Accordingly, in the melancholic and phlegmatic, inhibition processes prevail. This does not mean that such a person is a brake, it means that a person thinks, such a person needs a little more time to make a decision, to change his mind, and so on.

Sometimes, the stuck type appears - often melancholic people tend to get stuck in some kind of experience. But this does not mean that someone is worse or better. Choleric can be compensated for with a schizoid character, and, for example, a melancholic with a narcissistic character - this happens, and it is quite real and possible.

Further, what I would like to talk about is about the levels of personality organization.

Levels of personality organization - like temperaments, are considered quite basic things, but they are more likely to depend on upbringing. Although they can be congenital. It is believed that there are three main levels:

Neurotic level of personality organization. Borderline level of personality organization. Psychotic level of personality organization

Often it is not known whether it is innate or not, because the psychotic level, someone descends to this level, and someone does not. This explains why there is a fairly large number of factors that scientists have not yet been able to explain, for example, such as: where does schizophrenia come from? I think that whoever finds an explanation for this is likely to receive the Nobel Prize.

Why am I not talking about healthy people, because there are practically no healthy people. Of course, we can assume that there are four levels of personality organization, but the fourth level is mythical - healthy, which no one has seen. Like Maslov's self-actualized personality, which no one has seen either.

Most people have, namely, a neurotic disposition or level of personality organization. Let's consider how the levels of personality organization differ among themselves.

To make it easier to understand, I will start with the difference between neurosis and psychosis. For example, it is no secret to anyone that a schizophrenic is one who has psychosis, hallucinations often occur. Such a person can talk to his fictional friend, he can do it, sometimes even out loud. But, friends, let's face it: which of you has never spoken to your fictional friend? I do this regularly, while in the kitchen I go about my business, I’m talking to someone, I don’t know with whom, but I am talking to someone. What is the difference then? The neurotic realizes that he is talking to a fictional friend. A psychotic, a schizophrenic, does not understand that this friend is fictional, he sincerely believes that this person is really near, he sees him, hears him, and so on. This is the difference between neurosis and psychosis.

Or, for example, a neurotic can wash his hands 25,000 times a day and, he understands that this is somehow not good, not very correct. The psychotic can do it, but not realizing that it is not normal. And you may not even know that he washes his hands 25,000 times or, for example, washes things, cleans the apartment or something like that. Why? Because a person has a split between reality and fantasy. A person goes beyond reality and that's it. And for him that reality also becomes reality. For the psychotic, these two realities simply coincide. A neurotic, on the other hand, can distinguish fantasy from reality, which is impossible for a psychotic, because for him they exist together.

Also, if we talk about psychosis, we see that in this case the person has a broken identity, he very poorly understands about himself as a whole, as if his personality is fragmentarily composed of pieces and a very large number of puzzles are missing. This can be heard, for example, in speech. The man gets confused: he went into the forest, left the forest, ended up at the edge of the forest, then ended up in the apartment, and then a woman came, and in general, my uncle said come on. Can not understand anything. Because with profound violations, speech is also impaired. In general, you can talk a lot about psychosis, this is a large psychiatric topic with many different symptoms, but I wanted you to understand the main differences.

The borderline level of personality - it lies between neurosis and psychosis. Accordingly, the borderline level of personality organization means that a person can sometimes be brought into the psychotic level. That is, periodically, a person may have problems, for example, with identity - what is called falling out of reality. When a person, a lot is in his fantasies. And there are a lot of such people.

Although there are also a lot of people with a psychotic personality organization, and many of them are socially well equipped. They can work and adapt to their illness.

Next on the level of the structure of the psyche, I highlight the character. That is, in parallel with the neurotic level of personality organization, character can go.

For example, I have a neurotic level of personality organization plus a schizoid character, a neurotic level of personality organization plus a narcissistic character, or, for example, a borderline level of personality organization plus a depressive character. And if you look at it as a whole, then these will be completely different cases.

Accordingly, character is, by and large, a set of neuroses or a set of neurotic reactions to certain situations. That is, if you already have character, then this is about accentuation. About the fact that in certain situations you do not act very well, use defense mechanisms, experience some kind of neurotic reactions, for example, in the form of guilt or fear - and this closes you. For example, in a schizoid character, it is inherent in a person to experience fear, which is why he begins to isolate himself. In a narcissistic character, a person experiences shame and rather let's show off, try to become even better, and better, and better, or also isolate. Indeed, many narcissists isolate themselves from shame.

If you are interested in knowing what accentuations you have, you can take the Leonhard-Schmishek test. It can be easily found among online tests. Don't worry if you have accentuation - that's great, that's good. In general, ideally, a person is considered perfectly healthy if he has all twelve types at high or above average levels. But such people do not exist in nature, I have not met.

Accordingly, one way or another, some personality trait will manifest itself more. Moreover, this can change, depending on what happens in life. For example, three years ago I took this test, and the result was an anxious accentuation, because there was an alarming moment in my life, now I have a completely different accentuation.

In my practice, I most of all rely on psychoanalytic theory, in particular on Mac Williams, Kernberg, although psychoanalysis is quite young in comparison with all scientific psychology. And unfortunately, there are no Mac Williams or Kernberg questionnaires yet. But nevertheless, with the help of psychoanalysis, one can understand much deeper the characteristics of a person's character.

So who is a schizoid and who is a schizophrenic? Schizophrenia is what psychosis loves, and the schizoid is a character type, absolutely normal, the same as all other character types. And here I want to clarify one important nuance when I talk about schizoids or narcissists - I'm talking about characters.

It becomes a personality disorder only when this character trait starts to go off scale and it becomes difficult for a person to live with it. For example, schizoid personality disorder means a state when a person has become completely isolated and this prevents him from socializing, he can no longer go to work, it is difficult for him. Anxiety personality disorder is when anxiety prevents a person from leaving the house. He comes back 25 times to check whether he turned off the light, water, gas. In such situations, the disorder is diagnosed.

But if a person periodically uses some standard defenses characteristic of a particular character, then this is normal. We all use protection and this is good, because otherwise we would not be able to avoid many injuries and wounds of the soul.

I hope you were able to understand a little and understand: what is behind what and how, you can structure the personality. Who is a schizoid and who is a schizophrenic. But if you have any more questions, be sure to ask them in the comments, I will definitely answer.