Some Notes on Schizoid Personality

As psychiatrists and clinical psychologists know well enough, the word schizoid, as a descriptive adjective pertaining to a certain type of personality-structure, was introduced into the psychologic vocabulary a number of years ago by Bleuler. This word can, of course, be defined as meaning “similar to schizophrenia, but not necessarily amounting to actual schizophrenia.” Before the author proceeds with his discussion of some questions relating to schizoid personality as an empirically observable phenomenon, he cannot resist saying that psychiatry is, of all rational sciences, probably the one in which, to this day, the most glaring terminologic confusion prevails. By a given term, one investigator understands a concept that is at least somewhat concrete and circumscribed; by the same term, another investigator may understand something either superficially or even radically different. Consequently, this deplorable absence of a really uniform psychiatric nomenclature ofttimes renders it a difficult procedure for a particular investigator or practitioner to communicate his findings and/or conclusions with maximum intelligibility.

Now whether such Bleulerian terms as schizoid and schizophrenic are the most aptly chosen words for describing certain psychic phenomena is, in the author's opinion, still open to question. For whereas, from an etymological point of view, such terms intrinsically convey the idea of “split mind” or “split personality”, more and more in the jargon of psychiatry they have come to connote the recalcitrant tendency of schizoid and schizophrenic persons to break away from objective reality. For his own part, the author would scarcely hesitate to adopt the Stranskian variant, intrapsychic ataxia, if Stransky's expression enjoyed a more widespread currency in contemporary psychiatric practice and research. Concerning Kraepelin's dementia praecox, one can say that its popularity manifests a progressive diminution.

Considerations of quantitative distinct