Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The search for a schizotypal personality: Historical origins and current status

1983; Elsevier BV; Volume: 24; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/0010-440x(83)90070-6

1532-8384

Larry J. Siever, John G. Gunderson,

Schizophrenia research and treatment

Recently a new diagnostic category, “schizotypal personality disorder” (SPD), has been introduced into the psychiatric literature as part of the development of the DSM-III classiffication of psychiatric disorders.1 Its development represents an attempt to clarify diagnostic usage in a currently murky area of psychiatric nomenclature. This territory encompasses individuals who have, in the past, been thought to have a close phenemonologic or biologic relatedness to schizophrenia without its severity of psychopathology. Among the reasons for urgently seeking diagnostic clarity in this area are: 1) Recognition of schizotypal traits indicating the presence of genetic factors related to schizophrenia may enhance the power of genetic analyses of schizophrenia.2 2) Studies of schizophrenia requiring control groups could exclude nonschizophrenic persons with a genetic diathesis to schizophrenia.3 3) A clearer characterization of schizophrenia-related phenotypes might allow more informed studies of environmental factors that may precipitate or forestall the development of overt psychoses in individuals who are genetically vulnerable to schizophrenia. 4) Individuals with SPD and their families may have specific and heretofore unrecognized treatment needs. 5) The relationship between presently overlapping formulations of personality disorders such as SPD and borderline personality disorder (BPD) could be further clarified and perhaps better discriminated. The purpose of this paper is to review the historical origins of the schizotypal category, the developments that led to its inclusion in DSM-III, and the issues that still need to be addressed. We expect to show that although the concept of a schizotypal personality is quite useful, the specific criteria that might best define it remain to be ascertained. However, we are increasingly able to do the more definitive studies that are needed to develop valid criteria for this disorder.