Understanding the schizoid position means keeping track of the starting point; which, in turn, means clarifying essential 'puzzle pieces' that lead to this adaptation.
Just like cluster B personality disorders schizoid personality disorder is also theorized to be a formative personality structure that is developed as a reaction and defense against a malfunctioning early developmental phase of upbringing.
Usually there's a pathological environment where the child is forced to retreat into a self-contained position that offers shielding and constancy, granting a stable ground for emotional regulation and psychological reliability.
Nevertheless, there's a substantial likelihood that other character and temperamental types may have managed to overcome an analogous upbringing and developed more socially sanctioned and self-efficacious strategies of adaptation.
This leads me to consider the relevance of the constitution - physical and psychological - of the individual.
I would even venture to say that the schizoid has a particular disposition which is laid out by authors like Masterson, McWilliams, Wheeler, and Lowen in his seminal work 'Bioenergetics'.
So, it seems appropriate to infer that this type of psychological organization has a component that cannot be simply narrowed down to environmental or formative factors; but it has a proeminent feature associated with the individual's physical constitution.
It's hard to say what body type is the rule among schizoids but Lowen describes either a slender ectomorphic figure or a fatter endomorphic one. In either case they tend to have underdeveloped body parts that may contribute to a child-like mode of being.
Many may be weary of the associations between physiognomy and psychological make up as a 1-to-1 equivalence, but that's not what's being made here. Instead, we're just pointing to apparent correlations and attempting to match psychological (mental and behavioral) styles with particular body types.
This isn't to say that those body types are exclusive of those psychological styles, nor that those body types only allow for those psychological styles. What's being said is that there may be a 'narrowing' of presentations when circumstances of duress or lack of strategies arise, making individuals default to styles that are more aligned with their physical structure - leading them to matching psychological propensities.
---
We have explored the formative upbringing and the constitution as potential contributors to the schizoid adaptation, but it's still important to link both through a chain of cultural genetic inheritance.
Genes are a form of culture. Our bodies adapt and transform acording to the lifestyle. This means that genes turn on and off as a consequence of life experiences, and this can be passed down to the next generations, which will not only inherit the biological machinery but also the cultural lifestyle of upbringing and way of life.
This is the challenge schizoids and their families must learn to transcend.
The schizoid is not just an individual with a personality disorder; other possible modes can occur as a 'personality organization', a 'personality style', or even a 'schizoid state' which narcissists (colloq.) can collapse into after 'mortification' - with quasi-borderline features - followed by a 'narcissistic collapse' (all these concepts are explored in the psychoanalytic theory - object relations).
In this context, it's important to understand the context of the schizoid position as a social pressure point.
Some schizoids report not having went through abuse, although some don't even recognize their trauma as abusive, but the large majority does report having been abused on many instances and ways.
The culture of lousy and traumatic upbringing has been passed down generationally and the schizoid is the latest node in the system. Incidentally, schizoids and their family members can also have been victims in their own rights as well as abusers.
Given that the structure of the schizoid position is that of a strained nervous system the schizoid is forced into a structure that allows for integrity within a social context; but it must be said that it's not out of choice as much as it is out of social pressure.
The schizoid position is after all a retreat.
The family system of the schizoid is very often a pathological one, constituted of parental figures that are very often narcissistic, antisocial, borderline, or schizoid themselves.
The integrity of the personality construct of the schizoid is one that attempts to maintain 'reality testing abilities' withlist maintaining the maximum adaptability at the minimum of energy cost due to prolongued tension, stress, and strain.
The individual attempts to remain structured in an unstructured environment; positioning himself as the set of characteristics that are missing in the family system.
