THE SCHIZOID PERSONALITY

"If you wouldn’t open your mouth, everything would be just fine."
-Robert Dupeau/Adrien Joyce (Carol Eastman)

The Schizoid Personality - A pervasive pattern of detachment from social relationships and a restricted range of expressions and emotions with regard to interpersonal settings. Beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts.

Three Films That Got It Right...
FIVE EASY PIECES - Bobby, in Five Easy Pieces, is inarguably a genius. He's gifted - he excels at everything he tries - be it playing an etude by Chopin or bowling a winning game down at the local lanes. He can even be charming when the mood strikes him. Yet despite these seeming advantages, he instead chooses to work on oil rigs (that is, when he can get a job). He spends his spare time drinking beer out of a can, listening to country music on a jukebox, and flirting with low-rent beauty parlor habitués. He shares a bed with a woman, Rayette Dipesto, who is so achingly inappropriate for him that he can't bring himself to calling her by her first name. He addresses her (when he must) with no small note of condescension - as simply "Dipesto." Bobby fled his comfortable, affluent home - a veritable nest of musical geniuses - in the Pacific Northwest for a life of tenuous manual labor and the company of undereducated, under-ambitious crackers. He abandons his potential and the expectations of society for a world in which he never has to fear fitting into.
POWDER - The titular Powder, from the movie Powder, is a hairless (he has an innate capacity for self-electrolysis), painfully pale (he's an albino), sensitive young man who is saddled with having to go through life as a semi-conductor. He was emotionally abused as a child by an angry father and then by distant grandparents. He has never been allowed any interaction with the outside world due to the familial embarrassment his odd appearance might cause. He is found in the basement of his grandparents' house after the grandfather has died, and ushered, begrudgingly, into society. Powder has only contempt for the outside world - he is bullied for being physically different, misunderstood for being mentally superior, and vilified for his unusual ability to conduct electricity (be it lightning or brain waves). He only wants to return to his basement, to be left alone, harassed by no one. "I don't want to be anywhere that's not home," he tells a well-intentioned social worker. "Home" is his farmhouse cellar with his books.
SILENT RUNNING - In the outer space of Silent Running, Freeman Lowell is stationed in orbit around the Earth. He tends to a vast botanical garden that represents all the species of plant life that the barren earth is now too polluted to sustain. Freeman is a solitary figure, dressing in a natural fiber tunic instead of the regulation space suit, eating fresh cantaloupe instead of the tubes of synthetic space food, and he lets his hair grow wild. He is an object of derision for his fellow, tour-of-duty astronauts, but he doesn't care. He is happiest when alone, isolated, tending his plants and nurturing lost ecosystems. He is an iconoclast, self-absorbed and focused on his personal mission. While his comrades race around in utility vehicles, bored, biding their time as they wait to return home, Freeman Lowell has no desire to ever return home. He's happiest in orbit - the sole occupant of his own little world while the planet for which he has little concern spins away below on its way to self-destruction.
The Outsider
The term "schizoid" refers to the defensive tendency to withdraw, to pull back from the complex and confusing tangles of interpersonal relationships. It is a need to retreat to an inner world in which the rules and expectations they adhere to are solely of their own devising. The Schizoid Personality is the ultimate outsider, standing at a distance from the rest of the world-a casual, dispassionate observer of the human condition.

Schizoids are not considered psychotic and should not be confused with those diagnosed with Schizophrenia, which is an organic malady marked by delusions and hallucinations. They may seem peculiar and eccentric, but they have no severe oddities in behavior or perception. They are often described as "sensitive" or "gentle.” Unlike the Antisocial (whose self-esteem comes from gaining power over others) or the Narcissistic Personality (whose self-esteem comes from the admiration of others), Schizoid individuals (at least in outward appearances) don't care what other people think. Regardless, they do face a tug-of-war between a fear that their own neediness will harm or drive away others and a fear that others will consume their identity. On the continuum of personality disorders, some Schizoid individuals may just seem introspective, whereas others may be socially disabled. An interesting delineation of the Schizoid is that generally they are much less fearful of abandonment than they are of being consumed.

As a result of this tug-of-war, the outward and the inward life for the Schizoid exist mostly in a state of contradiction. They are rarely sure of who they are. It will come as no surprise then that the films and stories that represent these individuals will also appear as an eccentric mixed bag. Here is a personality that includes both a teenager with an affection for killer rats (the horror luxury Willard) and a painfully shy woman dominated by her tyrannical father in 1850s New York City (William Wyler’s exquisite interpretation of The Heiress). There is the dispassionate wiretapper, Harry Caul (The Conversation); the introverted Harold (the small marvel Harold and Maude); and sundry mad scientists (The Fly). Some are wealthy and some are poor. Some lived in centuries past and others live far in the future. Some are powerful and strong and some are terribly weak. What they do have in common is that they are all misfits. Oddballs, to say the least. They all share the inherent traits of being removed, unemotional, aloof, eccentric, loners, and (to varying degrees) asexual.

The most apparent aspect of the Schizoid is his disregard for social conventions and expectations. Freeman Lowell (Silent Running) forgoes the macho roughhousing for his pursuit of pastoral serenity; Bobby (Five Easy Pieces) turns his back on an expected career in music for the itinerant life of the road; Powder scoffs at the attempts to socialize him and heads back to the farm.

The Schizoid Personality shows a strong degree of detachment. They tend to involve themselves in solitary activities, and (often very intelligent) to excel at them. Freeman, for example, is a brilliant botanist, and Powder can memorize an entire library. Harry Caul (The Conversation) is considered the best electronics bugger in the business. Seth Brundle (The Fly) is a brilliant scientist, a man so focused on himself that his wardrobe is entirely made up of black clothes so as to avoid wasting time on choices. Such things might distract him from his own desires. Schizoids will withdraw socially. They isolate themselves and they tend to have very few close friends. Freeman (Silent Running) prefers the company of drone robots; Bobby (Five Easy Pieces) chooses friends (and mates) who are far beneath his intellectual level and are incapable of proving interesting or challenging to him. Peter Miller (Dressed to Kill) prefers to stay locked up in his bedroom with his invented gadgets (it is not until his mother is viciously murdered that he steps into the outside world). Catherine Sloper (The Heiress) rarely leaves 16 Washington Square. An interesting backstage side note concerns Montgomery Cliff, who played Catherine’s suitor. Cliff was considered bright, aloof, and a bit of a loner (some might say, schizoid). Despite this being what many consider his finest performance, he was unsure of himself in the role. He was apparently in fear of being “consumed” by the legendary talents of William Wyler, Ralph Richardson, and Olivia de Havilland. Cliff found his own schizoid tendencies playing forth and, during the course of the film, he reportedly refused to speak with other cast members or come out of his trailer except for his scenes.

Me Against Them
Because of this self-distancing, Schizoids often seem aloof, contemptuous. They tend to have an emotional frigidity, a flattened affectivity. They are not forthcoming with their feelings. They don't believe that others could be capable of comprehending what they are feeling and, quite honestly, they don't care if they do. For this reason, they have difficulty with aggression and hostility-bottling it up instead of releasing it. They see themselves apart from the world-disengaged observers-and are therefore not unduly affected by it. Praise or criticism from the world at large means nothing to them. Five Easy Pieces’ Bobby sneers at Catherine Van Ost, a protégé of his father's, when she tells him how beautifully he has played. He dismisses her by saying that it had no feeling in it whatsoever, that he's played it by rote since he was a child. When Powder is told that his superlative mind might be the next step in the evolution of man, he replies, "So what?"

Unlike the Borderline Personality, who splits the world into all good and all bad, the Schizoid splits the world into himself and everyone else. He is seen as living in two worlds at once-or in his own world bubbled within the larger one (in the case of Freeman Lowell, orbiting around the larger one). The outer world is perceived as consuming, distorted, and a threat to the security and individuality of the Schizoid. So he turns inward, creates his own world-Freeman's floating greenhouse, Bobby's lonely sage in a land of fools. He perceives with his own unique vision-Powder's telepathic ability to empathize. He doesn't care whether or not the world misunderstands him.

Because these are inward turning souls, it is not surprising that the Schizoid Personality gravitates to such reflective and self-analytical enterprises as literature, art, and philosophy. On the other end of the spectrum, they are also found in careers that require minimal human interaction such as computers, engineering, and mathematics. Because establishing themselves as separate, distinct entities is central to the Schizoid, they end up appearing as eccentric-authentic in the extreme. Though Bobby shuns the opportunity of individual creative expression of being a pianist for the unstable life of a migrant worker, he is in fact a distinctive individual. Stemming from this result of being separate, the Schizoid Personality is often extremely self-critical, self-effacing. They have only the highest expectations of themselves and they can be very harsh in their self-judgment if the mark is not hit. Powder shrugs off all the amazement at his encyclopedic knowledge; Freeman kills himself because he feels he failed as the protector of the plants. They carry the rare burden that it is not easy to pleasantly surprise oneself-to create something original when the sources and the mysteries of that creation are intimately known and the resultant self-castigation can be scathing. They tend to intellectualize in order to understand the world. They use their high intelligence as a defense and the most adaptive use of this defense is a withdrawal into their creativity. Young Peter Miller (Dressed to Kill) has more concern over inventing a gadget that might nab his mother’s killer than experiencing any grief over her death. The Schizoid individual is often seen as misunderstood or under-appreciated-geniuses, the special child that everyone failed to recognize. This is precisely because they do not seek recognition or admiration-they walk away from it and hide from it when it is offered.

The Schizoid tends to have a deep interest in non-human pursuits. Peter (Dressed to Kill) has his inventions, Seth (The Fly) his morbid science, Catherine (The Heiress) her embroidery work. Harold (Harold and Maude) has managed to morph the concept of non-human pursuits into an attraction to funerals and the dead (people, but dead).

Some Schizoids have a tendency to form strong attachments to animals.

Willard Stiles (Willard) is a man who cannot find his place in the world, and he doesn't care. He shares a rambling, musty house with his nagging, manipulative mother and her intrusive friends. At work he is routinely and publicly humiliated by his boss, Mr. Martin, who is the man who stole the business from Willard's father and has set out to destroy the entire family. As Willard retreats from the outside world and isolates himself, he finds at last a suitable set of companions. Queenie, Socrates, and Ben are rats that he was ordered by his mother to kill-instead they become the only creatures to whom he truly opens his heart. With a little training and a lot of love the rats are soon able to destroy Willard's enemies with but a signal from his hand.
The Storm Within
The Schizoid Personality has difficulty promoting their self-expression. They see no point in making their feelings (pleasure or displeasure) known. They care little that anything they could ever do or say would make any difference to the outside world, which exists as another sphere entirely below the threshold of their concern. When Willard's mother dies he reacts to the news without dropping a tear or uttering a word of regret, or remorse, or love. He takes the news so dispassionately in fact that his mother's ubiquitous friend feels the need to take up the slack and go into a mourning frenzy. For Willard, it is only in his regard for his creative endeavors that he shows any strong emotion at all. When Willard's favorite rat, Socrates, is bludgeoned to death, Willard reacts first by openly sobbing and then, when alone with his surviving rat, Ben, by becoming stricken with guilt and berating himself for his powerlessness to stop the killing.

The Schizoid Personality is not overtly hostile or aggressive and can seem to lack any defenses at all. But this may be a case where placid waters can hide a wicked undertow. The Schizoid can feel hostile and does so often. The fear of being consumed (and the perceived annihilation of their individuality) can incite intense anger. But showing it, exhibiting it, can be dangerous for them. Unlike the Borderline Personality, who directs his hostility outward, the Schizoid directs it inward. It shows up in their unduly harsh criticism of themselves. Witness Freeman Lowell, who takes self-criticism as far at it can go-which means suicide. Very commonly the anger and hostility they feel emerges in their violent fantasies. Willard lies down and takes whatever abuse Mr. Martin feels like serving him-from making him work weekends without overtime to stealing his house out from under him. Though he doesn't defend himself against Mr. Martin, when Willard is alone he enacts all manner of miniature scenarios with his rats that feature aggression and destruction.

The Schizoid also tends to be hypersensitive, which is to say they are over-stimulated by people. This hypersensitivity can also be to light, motion, or noise. Any external stimulation can seem overly intrusive to the acutely interior world of the Schizoid (hence the perception that they are sensitive). This excess stimulation causes them to become more insular or retreat into greater fantasy. Bobby, when faced with Rayette's nagging need for recognition of her talent (or her very existence), merely zones out, damning her singing with faint praise. Catherine Sloper (The Heiress) will eventually lock out the world (literally and figuratively) and carry upstairs her single lamp of dimming light into a dark abyss.

The Schizoid customarily seems to hold the knowledge that the world is spiraling unstoppably into catastrophe. So, really, why bother? This fatalistic worldview has actually come to fruition in Silent Running, thereby justifying Freeman's derision. Powder, too, doesn't seem to hold much fondness for the outside world-a world that kills deer for sport. He wants to go back to his basement. Mr. Ripley, his insightful math teacher, can't help but agree with him. He tells him that the horror he has witnessed in books can’t come close to what goes on in the real world. Powder declines Mr. Ripley's invitation to become part of the solution.
Relationships
Considering all this, the Schizoid's major font of problems is in the sphere of interpersonal relationships. Social settings present times of great discomfort for them. They feel awkward and fraudulent. They have little capacity or patience for idle social chitchat. At the family dinner table, Bobby can only roll his eyes contemptuously at the forced civility of the situation. At his own birthday party, Willard is at first annoyed and then openly disgusted at the banter of his mother's friends that is meant to encourage him. Finally he takes his piece of cake and, without a word of explanation or apology, leaves the house.

Schizoid individuals take pleasure in few if any social activities, and, being ill at ease, their attempts at humor come off as forced or inappropriate. Most of their anxiety centers on keeping their life safe and differentiated. Social activities, by definition, demand fitting in with and becoming part of the greater whole. This is the utter opposite of what the Schizoid wants. When forced into such situations, the Schizoid’s defenses are triggered. They isolate themselves and the result is that they are then perceived as aloof, snobbish, superior.

But, being human beings first and Schizoid second, they also desire love and closeness. They want the bonding, the attention, but are very uncomfortable (and may even panic) when they get it. There exists a real fear that their needs will send others away. In Five Easy Pieces, Bobby chooses a mate with whom he has absolutely no common ground, intellectually or socially. This prevents him from ever getting too close to her. She's a body in the bed next to him, but he couldn't care less if she leaves him or stays. When Bobby's familial problems are at last put to rest and he is on the road again with Rayette and it looks as though that may be all he has left, he abandons her. With not so much as a kiss goodbye, he hitches a ride with a logger while she is in the restroom of a gas station. Catherine Sloper (The Heiress) uses the outward projection of her insecurities (the desire/fear of being loved) to ward off suitor after suitor.

Relationships become an emotional tug of war with the Schizoid, both internally and with their partners. The Schizoid, in non-threatening situations-or at least before intimacy has become an expectation-may seem gentle, intimate, honest. But the situation must include insurmountable walls protecting the Schizoid in order to make him feel safe enough to let down his guard. Powder is sincere and affectionate with a young girl from school (Lindsey), but society has enforced a distance between them. Bobby is very sincere and forthcoming with Catherine Van Ost, but both she and Bobby know that he is unavailable. The Schizoid can be very genuine, even needy, as long as the line that prevents others from getting too close is not crossed. That line is crucial. It protects his uniqueness (his essence) from the threat of being subsumed by the other person. Harry Caul (The Conversation) recites a list to a woman he believes is falling in love with him. It is a list of all the negative attributes a man such as him has to offer-a damning self-criticism. Harry asks her if she would stay with such a man if all he could offer her were that he said he loved her. The woman responds, "How would I know he loved me?" To which Harry sadly concedes, "You would never know."

The Schizoid is generally not the most sexual of people. They regularly remain detached and removed when in the act. They may be perfectly orgasmic, but they rarely abandon themselves to the ecstasy of the moment. They tend to save their sensual intensity for their creative endeavors. Schizoids are commonly lovers at a distance. Bobby only acquiesces to Rayette's incessant pleas for declarations of love with a contemptuous monosyllable when her whining threatens to interfere with his sleep. Powder returns Mr. Ripley's advances of friendship with a curt, "I don't need a friend." On one level, they crave closeness and complain of alienation and loneliness (even though it is self-imposed). They are sincere, sensitive, and disarmingly honest because they have no time or interest in the maze of social games and pretensions. They are blunt, forthright, and real-their paucity of social skills serves them well in this area and can make them very attractive. But the push/pull of love and fear makes them very trying as mates. No sooner do they attract others-which they may well have wanted to do-than they must force them away out of their own pathological sense of self-preservation. The attention required by a mate, the conjoining of identities called for in a relationship, is stifling. For this reason the Schizoid rarely marries.
Backstory
The Schizoid is viewed developmentally as being fixated at the oral stage, at around the time of the “terrible twos.” There is an early decision made to isolate. Quite often this self-imposed exile occurs because there has been a failure to receive what they need from the mother (sometimes the father). This rejection means that they can make no further attempts to receive what they need from others later on in their lives. It is also not uncommon for the child to interpret their neediness as the cause of the parent seeming to be driven away from them. Later, they will deny wanting from others for fear it will drive them away as well.

The childhood of the Schizoid can go one of two very different ways. The primary caregivers (or the childhood environment) may be intrusive or domineering. The parents are often over-invested or over-involved with the child. They may transgress the personal boundaries, through being either overprotective or hypercritical. Bobby's siblings and father are all noted musicians and the expectation that he would follow in the family footsteps are tangible. He could play Chopin at the age of 8. No child, no matter how gifted, can do that without a strict regimen and discipline. Bobby has musical greatness thrust upon him, and his reaction was to turn his back and flee. When Catherine Van Ost asks him why he wasted his life, he is surprised, saying that in no way does he consider his life wasted. This child then escapes to an inward world of imagination and exclusion in order to form a healthy ego.

Conversely, the childhood of the Schizoid may be one of loneliness and relative neglect. Powder is rejected and abused by his father and subsequently banished to the cellar by his grandparents (ostensibly to keep him from frying them). Dr. Sloper (The Heiress) holds his daughter Catherine accountable for the death of his wife. All of her life, Catherine has been dictated over and punished. In this scenario, the child will retreat into a fantasy world to create a safe, nurturing environment: a place where he feels accepted; a place where the only type of parenting available to him will be a symbolic one-one that he must supply for himself.
The Arc Of A Schizoid Film Character
Harry Caul in Francis Ford Coppola’s early showing of film making power, The Conversation, is a surveillance expert who is a genius in his business of covertly recording the business of others. He is excellent at his job because he is, by the necessity of his profession, detached from the world-a dispassionate observer and cataloguer of behavior. He is detached, removed, unmoved. He is presented to us as an almost prototypical Schizoid. Coppola’s filming emphasizes these qualities-he wears a translucent wrinkled raincoat at all times, in all weather, a shield through which he can see the world but is nonetheless protected from it. He is also frequently filmed using long shots and a static, mounted camera-this conveys how dwarfed he is by his surroundings, how easily engulfed he is, and how impersonally he moves through the world, even his own home. His very name is symbolic-a caul is the veil of tissue over a newborn infant’s face; again a mask, a separation that keeps Harry and the world apart (although he can still observe it). To emphasize this, throughout The Conversation Harry is filmed as though through a caul. He is shot with his face covered by a sheer curtain, through an opaque shower door. When his rival surveillance man, Bernie Moran, confronts him about his responsibility in the deaths of former clients, Harry secludes himself behind a translucent scrim before responding.

Harry prides himself in not letting anyone in. When his landlady surprises him with a birthday gift left in his apartment he upbraids her, demanding to know how and why she has the keys to let herself in. She explains that she needs them in case of an emergency. Harry responds that he would rather have all of his personal things burn up in a fire because, as he tells her, "I don't have anything personal." He also tells her that he's getting himself a post office box for his mail from that day forward-one with a combination: "No keys."

As is often the case with the Schizoid, Harry is exquisitely talented in one area, an area that luckily happens to be his livelihood. "Harry's the best," Moran grudgingly admits. It is by no coincidence that Harry’s job requires no personal interaction.

In Act One, we see that Harry has a relationship (of sorts) with a girl named Amy. It is a relationship that places no undue pressure on him for commitment, one that is not threatening because it is of such little importance (not unlike the relationship Bobby has with Rayette Dipesto in Five Easy Pieces). Amy is sweet, cherubic (if not perhaps a little thick), and so malleable that it is easy for Harry to keep her at arm's length. She doesn't know where Harry works, where he lives, or anything remotely personal about him. Their entire relationship can be summed up in that he visits her at night and pays her rent. She asks him questions because, she claims, she wants to know him. He responds to her inquisition by telling her that he doesn't "want people asking me a lot of questions." Then he leaves. His privacy is of paramount importance and any intrusion into his private life is anathema to him-interesting because his lucrative career is based on violating the privacy of others.

Act One ends with Harry, isolated and alone, riding a bus and haunted by the fates of the young couple, Ann and Mark, whose conversation he has recorded for a high paying client known only as "the Director.”

In Act Two, Harry Caul's entrenched Schizoid behavior is severely challenged. Because he is feeling dangerously empathetic with Ann (the woman on whom he spied), he lashes out at Stan, his colleague, when Stan questions him on the nature of the tapes. "It's curiosity," Stan shrugs, "You ever hear of that? It's human nature." "I don't know about human nature," Harry yells at him. "That's not part of what I do." In life as well as work, it would seem. He also lashes out at Moran who, in an effort to impress him, secretly plants a microphone in Harry's lapel. This breach of Harry's privacy sends him reeling and he explodes in such volcanic ire that his guests shrink away, frightened and alarmed.

We learn through Moran that his callus, disinterested ways led to the killing of three people in New York. Haunted by the guilt of that incident, he begins to humanize the very people to whom he should retain an utmost professional distance, Ann and Mark. Although he would be loath to bring himself to reach out from the protective bubble of his self-imposed isolation, he realizes that history could repeat itself-Ann and Mark could be killed as a result of his actions. He forces himself to care, to get involved, and to take action. He withholds the incriminating tapes from the Director. When the tapes are stolen from Harry’s workshop, he goes to the hotel where the murder will occur to try and somehow stop it.

Also in Act Two, we are given a brief peek into the childhood of Harry Caul when he has a dream and warns Ann of the impending threat to her life. He tells her a little something about himself, which is typical of the formative years of the Schizoid Personality. He tells Ann about being ill as a child, so ill that he was paralyzed and had to be washed by his mother-circumstances forcing her into the role of doting mother. It is not inconceivable that this kind of incident would blur the lines of privacy for the growing child's emerging selfhood. Harry also recalls how once his mother had to answer the phone in the middle of a bath. Helpless, young Harry began sinking into the water, the fear of being consumed taking a very tangible turn.

In Act Three, Harry takes decisive action. Despite having already accepted the money for the tapes, and despite the very real physical danger, he goes against all of his tendencies to isolate and heads to the hotel where he believes the Director will kill his young wife, Ann. Once in the adjacent hotel room, Harry goes through a Schizoid's waking nightmare. He hears the screams and violence in the next room but he is unable to make himself leave the physical cocoon of the room-mirroring the isolation he imposes on himself emotionally. He wants to break out, reach out into the world, but he finds that he is unable. His isolation that was once his sanctuary is now his prison. It is at this point that Harry (up until now a perfectly functional Schizoid) crosses over into psychosis. The line separating healthy suspicion from abject paranoia becomes blurred-real and imagined dangers become indistinguishable. We become uncertain as to what Harry is seeing: an actual murder or delusions. When it turns out that a murder did take place, but that the victims (or so Harry presumed) turned out to be the perpetrators, Harry is told that he is being watched. He knows who the real murderers are, and they know that he knows. When they let him know that his privacy has been breached, he goes on a rampage and completely tears apart his home-obsessively, methodically slashing up and destroying not only all of his belongings, but the walls and floor as well.
QUALITIES AND QUALIFICATIONS THAT DEFINE THE SCHIZOID PERSONALITY:

They exhibit a pervasive need to detach from any social situation.

They tend to be loners with few close friends or confidantes (if they do have a friend, it is usually one close one).

They are usually not close to their families.

They are not joiners.

They tend to be unemotional, or at least undemonstrative.

Though they may be sexually functional and orgasmic, they tend to show very little interest in sex with other people, or, if they do, the sex tends to be perfunctory.

They tend to gravitate to solitary activities and pursuits.

They don't seem to take pleasure in any activities except for their solitary pursuits.

They are often perceived as being aloof, distant, or frigid.

They often appear to others as being eccentric, lonely, isolated.

They are not usually garrulous, and almost never volunteer personal information.

They seem indifferent to either the praise or the criticism of others.

They tend to be severely self-critical.

They seldom marry, or if they do, the union is usually passionless.

They exhibit discomfort in social situations.

They gravitate to jobs that are solitary and require little interaction with people.

They show little concern for the day to day lives of those around them.

They are usually unable to express anger directly.

They tend to invest a lot of their energy in non-human interests, such as academics and science.

They can become very fond of and deeply attached to animals.

They often find it difficult to maintain eye contact for very long periods.

They tend to be good at pursuits that involve theory, philosophy, or the arts.

They are usually non-confrontational and therefor usually seem passive.

They usually have a disregard and contempt for conventional social expectations.

They usually have a fear of being subsumed or obliterated by others.

They generally are much less fearful of abandonment than they are of being consumed.
NOTEWORTHY CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SCHIZOID PERSONALITY

SPEECH
Representative of isolation from society. Simplistic or highly evolved vocabulary-it lacks influence from society.

PROFESSIONS
Drawn to careers such as literature, art, and philosophy. Or on the other end of the spectrum, careers that require little human interaction such as computers, engineering, and mathematics.

DRESS
Eccentric, odd, non-compliant with societal norms. Not highly influenced by fashion.

HEALTH
Not particularly obsessed with matters of health. Absence of stress induced illnesses. Not particularly affected by stresses of the world.
POPULAR CLICHÉS OF THE SCHIZOID PERSONALITY
Weirdo.
Oddball.
Misfit.
Sensitive.
A Prodigy.
Stuck-up.
Snobbish.
Spinster.
Off-center.
Eccentric.
Leper.
Pariah.
Droll.
Duck.
SIMILAR PERSONALITY STYLES OF THE SCHIZOID PERSONALITY
THE PARANOID PERSONALITY
VIEWING SUGGESTIONS OF THE SCHIZOID PERSONALITY

Conversation, The (1974) - Drama, 113, Rated PG.
For Gene Hackman as Harry Caul. Assuredly one of his finest performances. Oscar nominated for Best Picture and for the Original Screenplay by Coppola.

Dressed to Kill (1980) - Thriller, 105, Rated R.
Keith Gordon as Peter Miller, the "nerd" son of razor victim Angie Dickinson.

Five Easy Pieces (1970) - Drama, 98, Rated R.
An instant classic performance by Jack Nicholson as Robert. The film was nominated for Best Picture. Nicholson was Oscar nominated for his performance. Adrien Joyce and Bob Rafelson were nominated for writing one of the most remarkable scripts of any decade.

Fly, The (1986) - Horror, 100, Rated R.
For Jeff Goldblum as creepy, crazy scientist, Seth Brundle-well on his way to never having to interact with the human species again. Careful what you wish for. NOTE: this is a remake of a 1958 horror film and errors (at least for the first half) a little more on the human/psychological side of the character. Once the fly becomes the fly, director Cronenberg can't resists the horror and all bets are off.

Harold and Maude (1972) - Comedy, 90, Rated PG.
Bud Cort as Harold. Wonderful, brilliant examples of the schizoid. Forever a classic.

Heiress, The (1949) - Drama, 115, No rating.
Olivia de Havilland as Catherine. Unquestionably her finest work. Not surprising, she took home Oscar. Perhaps one of the finest films ever made. So many people at the top of their form. Nominated for eight Academy Awards-oddly though, not for the exceptional writing that got everyone there.

Powder (1995) - Fantasy/Drama, 111, Rated PG-13.
For Sean Patrick Flanery as Powder.

Silent Running (1971) - Science Fiction, 89, Rated G.
For Bruce Dern as Freeman.

Willard (1971) - Horror, 95, Rated PG.
For Bruce Davidson as Willard.