PERSONAL STYLES IN TEENAGERS. SCHIZOID PERSONAL STYLE

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

The most typical features of schizoid psychology are considered isolation from others, isolation, low need for communication. There are different points of view in the literature on whether to view the psychology of schizoidism as a conflict (between the need for intimacy and the need for distance), or as a deficit (developmental delay that prevented the achievement of interpersonal communication). V. Lijardi et al. suggest that both types can be found on the health-disease continuum, indicating that the conflict-based type will fall in the higher functioning range.

Adolescents with schizoid personal styles do not have developed social skills and tend to show social awkwardness, which results in isolation from peers and lack of close friends. The appearance and demeanor of oneself seem strange to others, which provokes in the latter a desire to stay away or bullying in relation to an incomprehensible peer. Schizoid adolescents may appear younger than their age and think too concretely, which causes peer reactions to ridicule or boredom.

In addition to being isolated from other people, such adolescents are isolated by the uniqueness of their thoughts and interests, which further increases their distance from their peers and from people in general. This does not mean that the schizoid adolescent does not want contacts at all, in some cases (as indicated in the literature of recent years) he seeks intimacy and social connections, but does not take any steps towards people due to the fear that their need for love will have negative consequences.

Unsuccessful attempts to establish relationships with peers and excessive fragility at the moments of their search, rapid exhaustion in contacts often provoke even greater isolation and withdrawal into a fantasy world.

Teenagers, being diffuse in themselves, become even more disorganized with closer contact with other people, as fear of absorption, capture, control and destruction permeates their entire being. They may experience intense yearning for a close relationship and fantasize profusely about emotional and sexual intimacy with another person.

At first glance, the reactions associated with the emerging sex drive may not appear at all, but external asexuality is often combined with rich sexual fantasies and frequent masturbation. Perverse forms of sexual activity are easily incorporated into schizoid fantasies. Outwardly detached "schizoid" can show stubborn sexual activity in various gross forms. Modern adolescents of the schizoid type tend to look for sexual partners on the Internet, sometimes distorting their age, strive to realize their sexual desire by meeting their acquaintance from the Internet “once”.

Schizoid adolescents are suitable for therapy in which there is emotional closeness and understanding of their characteristics, respect for their need for considerable distance.