Question

A psychologist is describing the different personality disorders. When she comes to avoidant and schizoid personality disorders, the students look puzzled. How will she distinguish these two personality disorders?

Answer 1

The main difference is that the avoidant personality tends to crave relationships but is afraid of rejection, thus the name avoidant, whilst the schizoid personality generally doesn't crave relationships.

Step-by-step explanation:

Both disorders are part of the Personality Disorders which are divided into clusters:

• Avoidant: it belongs to cluster C, characterized by a general feeling of anxiousness as well as being perceived by others as withdrawn.
• Schizoid: it belongs to cluster A, characterized by a difficulty to relate to others and perceived as weird for certain behaviors, for example.