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Each individual who is typed as “schizoid” is in reality a unique person.2,4,5 He will ultimately reveal any classification of his behavior to be the limited conceptual tool of those who classify his actions. He must finally answer to his name, not to our term. Even so, there is a measure of utility in the rough guides which are used to discriminate among the actions of the persons who enter the consulting room. In this paper I will propose a definition of the term schizoid and will furnish three examples of schizoid rule-following. My purpose is to communicate an “understanding” of the more striking behaviors and experiences of those persons whose problems in living have occasioned the use of the term “schizoid.”
To indicate that the behavior of someone is schizoid is to say that his actions appear to follow a set of remarkable and predominating rules as he pursues, or fails to pursue, a succession of goals.29,37 Those rules (together with a note on their origins and consequences) which characterize the actions of the schizoid individual* may be summarized as follows:
1. The criteria most often cited are negative. The individual does not follow the rules which define psychoses, nor does he, in the course of time, act in such a way as to secure his own well-being. That is,