Schizoid Personality Disorder Therapist

Do you feel terrified of and yet somehow in incredible need of human contact?

We know that a personality disorder is a way of relating to the world at large that constantly leaves us and the people around us feeling uncomfortable, shortchanged or downright unsafe.

Schizoid personality disorder is marked by a preoccupation with trust and intimacy. People with this presentation grew up feeling like they were being used, being treated like objects with no feelings of their own. They learnt to leave their bodies and check-out to deal with the pain, thus going through life in a dissociative or not-there haze.

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Signs associated with Schizoid Personality Disorder

Like their feelings, their true self has become difficult to access. It has learnt to absent itself to cope with not feeling safe, making it intolerable for them to let another close enough to see it.

Thus they find themselves constantly going after emotionally unavailable people, forming distant arrangements or having relationships with people in their head that they don’t tell anyone about. They even might find it difficult to get physically close to another person without feeling overwhelmed and freezing, or running away. 

This was a way of relating to the world that was of use to you in your early childhood environment. While it helped you survive those circumstances, in the outside world, you need to feel like your real self, and you need to connect authentically with others.

How I can help

We will allow you to explore letting your walls down primarily by providing a safe physical space that remains intact over time, over which you have control. In this way, you can come closer to your need for closeness, as well as the paralyzing fear of not existing if you attend to that need.

Through the structure of therapy and my empathetic understanding of your mistrust, we will help you see that I remain even though you feel ambivalent about me. This will help tolerate ambivalence towards others, helping you to get closer without experiencing existential dread.

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Personality disorders

Want to learn about personality disorders and my approach to them? Dr. Elinor Greenberg calls them personality adaptations, and I think she's the coolest cat.

Borderline personality disorder

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Narcissistic personality disorder

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