Differentiating Psychopath from Schizoid

One of the easiest ways to differentiate a person who is a Psychopath from a person with Schizoid Personality Disorder is by how they are with regard to experiencing emotions. Their reactions may appear superficially similar, but they are actually almost polar opposites.

Psychopaths and Fear

I agree with Athena Walker’s position that psychopaths are born not made. Research shows that their amygdalae (we actually have two, one in each of our temporal lobes in our brain) are on average 18% smaller than normal.

The amygdala is part of our emotional processing system. It is involved in our response to fear and our ability to remember events that produced that fear. Our amygdalae normally automatically trigger our fight or flight response and are involved in our experience of anxiety.

This means that psychopaths have less capacity to experience fear, react less to stimuli that most people consider frightening, and are less likely to remember to avoid situations that are potentially dangerous.

Schizoid Personality Disorder and Fear

People with Schizoid Personality appear to have been born with normal nervous systems including normal size amygdalae. But they had traumatic childhood experiences that started before the age of four and continued. Many of my Schizoid clients suffer from complex PTSD.

Unlike the Psychpaths I know who tend to be restless, fearless, insensitive, and amoral, most of my Schizoid clients are quite sensitive, moral, and more afraid of other people than normal. They have a full set of emotions which they generally try to keep hidden. Many of my Schizoid clients write poetry that expresses their deepest feelings.

My Schizoid clients report having been emotionally and physically abused, neglected, intruded upon, and treated like a thing, not a person with feelings and rights. As babies and young children, they experienced a severe lack of attunement by their parents.

What looks like a lack of emotions is actually dissociation or hidden emotions.

Because they could not physically leave their childhood situation, they learned to dissociate from their bodies and the situation by “going away” in their heads. They also learned that expressing their emotions or asking for what they wanted was pointless. They were ignored, mocked, or abused even more.

All of the above taught them that they could only depend on themselves. Instead of turning outward for validation, they turned inward and created a rich fantasy life in which they could have safe and controllable imaginary interactions with other people.

Punchline: Psychopaths experience diminished fear responses and less stress than normal. They appear comfortable in situations where other people would feel afraid. People with Schizoid Personality Disorder are the opposite. They experience more fear than normal. They hide their feelings because they have learned to feel unsafe around most people — not because they feel less.

- Elinor Greenberg, PhD, CGP - on Quora