The work group is recommending that this disorder be reforumulated as the Schizotypal Type. 

Individuals who match this personality disorder type have social deficits, marked by discomfort with and reduced capacity for interpersonal relationships; eccentricities of appearance and behavior, and cognitive and perceptual distortions.  They have few close friends or relationships.  They are anxious in social situations (even when they have the time to become familiar with the situation), feel like outcasts or outsiders, find it difficult to feel connected to others, and are suspicious of others’ motivations, including their spouse, colleagues, and friends. 

Individuals with this type are eccentric, odd, or peculiar in appearance or manner (e.g., grooming, hygiene, posture, and/or eye contact are strange or unusual).  Their speech may be vague, circumstantial, metaphorical, overelaborate, impoverished, overly concrete, or stereotyped.  Individuals with this type experience a limited or constricted range of emotions, and are inhibited in their expression of emotions.  They may appear detached and indifferent to other’s reactions, despite internal distress at being “set apart.”

Odd beliefs influence their behavior, such as beliefs in superstition, clairvoyance, or telepathy.  Their perception of reality can become further impaired, often under stress, when reasoning and perceptual processes become odd and idiosyncratic (e.g., they may make seemingly arbitrary inferences, or see hidden messages or special meanings in ordinary events) or quasi-psychotic, with symptoms such as pseudo-hallucinations, sensory illusions, over-valued ideas, mild paranoid ideation, or transient psychotic episodes.  Individuals with this personality disorder type are, however, able to “reality test” psychotic-like symptoms and can intellectually acknowledge that they are products of their own minds. 

Instructions

A.  Type rating.  Rate the patient’s personality using the 5-point rating scale shown below.  Circle the number that best describes the patient’s personality. 

5 = Very Good Match: patient exemplifies this type

4 = Good Match: patient significantly resembles this type

3 = Moderate Match: patient has prominent features of this type

2 = Slight Match: patient has minor features of this type

1 = No Match: description does not apply 

B.  Trait ratings.  Rate extent to which the following traits associated with the Schizotypal Type are descriptive of the patient using this four-point scale:   

0 = Very little or not at all descriptive

1 = Mildly descriptive

2 = Moderately descriptive

3 = Extremely descriptive

1. Schizotypy: Eccentricity

Unusual behavior (e.g., unusual mannerisms; wearing clothes obviously inappropriate to the occasion or season); saying unusual or inappropriate things, using neologisms, or concrete and impoverished speech; seen by others of the same culture and society as bizarre, odd, and strange 

2. Schizotypy: Cognitive Dysregulation

Unusual thought processes; having thoughts and ideas that do not follow logically from each other; derailment of one’s train of thought; making loose associations or non-sequiturs; disorganized and/or confused thought, especially when stressed

3. Schizotypy: Unusual Perceptions

Having odd experiences in various sensory modalities; having synesthesia (cross-modal perception); perceiving events and things in ways that others do not

4. Schizotypy: Unusual Beliefs

Content of thoughts that is viewed by others of the same culture and society as bizarre; idiosyncratic but deeply held convictions that are not well justified by objective evidence; interest in the occult and in unusual views of reality

5. Introversion: Social Withdrawal

Preference for being alone to being with others; reticence in social situations; avoidance and lack of enjoyment of social contacts/activity; lack of initiation of social contact

6. Introversion: Restricted Affectivity

Lack of emotional experience and display; emotional reactions, when evident, are shallow and transitory; unemotional, even in normally emotionally arousing situations s

7. Introversion: Intimacy Avoidance

Disinterest in and avoidance of close relationships, interpersonal attachments, and intimate sexual relationship

8. Negative Emotionality: Suspiciousness             

Mistrust of others; expectations of and hyper-alertness to signs of interpersonal ill-intent or harm; having doubts about others’ loyalty and fidelity; feelings of persecution

9. Negative Emotionality: Anxiousness                             

Feelings of nervousness, tenseness, and/or being on edge; worry about past unpleasant experiences and future negative possibilities; feeling fearful and threatened by uncertainty