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Crunch wrote:BOOK LIST
TITLES ABOUT SCHIZOID PERSONALITY
[**** very difficult reading, *** difficult, ** less difficult, *easy]
[*** excellent info **good info, *very average info/don't bother]
_______________________
Psychoanalytic Studies of the Personality- by W Fairbairn (chapter 1) **** **

Schizoid Phenomena- by Harry Guntrip **** ***

...

The majority of these books are couched in the language of psychoanalytic theory: object relations, variations on the Oedipal complex, dream analysis, the works. I've recently finished Guntrip in particular, and although one can certainly glean the occasional useful insight, it's necessary to wade through great steaming heaps of pseudoscientific excrement to do so.

Has anyone read the other object relations / psychoanalysis texts (e.g. Fairbairn, Seinfeld, Masterson, Khan) and can testify whether they're worth the time/money/indignity? Can anyone recommend others, besides perhaps Laing and Storr, that don't attribute SPD to a weak and frightened split-ego with a repressed desire to return to the womb?

^I've read some Fairbairn and in my opinion the object relations theory is worth looking into. At the time I had the opportunity to study it a little I wasn't particularly interested in SPD ...I was hardly aware of it. Have you ever read any Winnicott? He said that one should respect the schizoid's need to be noncommunicative, among other things.

My memory is so bad that I can't help you much. What I remember is that above all, those two focus on the psychotherapeutic process, and I think that their theoretical foundation wasn't as pseudoscientific as it is in the field of psychology.

Schizoid Phenomena, Object-Relations, and the Self by Harry Guntrip

Based on a series of clinical studies of schizoid problems, this book is a sequel to Harry Guntrip's theoretical study of the emergence of the schizoid problem, Personality Structure and Human Interaction (1961). It includes revised versions of earlier papers, and also much original material. In Part 1, a description of the schizoid position is given, in terms of relation to the external world, internal states of ego disintegration and, the core of the problem, the dissociated and lost emotional heart of the total self.

Part 2 reviews the theoretical development which makes it necessary to see manic-depressive problems in the light of the deeper and more subtle schizoid condition. Part 3, on "The Nature of Basic Ego-Weakness", seeks to assess fully the importance of Winnicott's research into the earliest beginnings of ego development, as the infant slowly grows into psychic separation from the mother, a process that involves both the opportunity for individuation and also the risk of loss of relationship, as well as the risk of possibly permanent stunting of the ego development instead of growth of basic ego relatedness in the mentally healthy person.

Part 4 explores the implications for psychotherapy of the study of the schizoid problem, particularly in the matter of the personal therapeutic relationship of therapist and patient. And finally, in Part 5, the review of theory is put on a broad foundation with a chapter on "The Concept of Psychodynamic Science" and another comparing the ego theories of Hartmann and the "object-relational" thinkers, Melanie Klein, Fairbairn, and Winnicott.

@Dazz: Thank you for the obliviously irrelevant copy-pasta from Google Books.

I get that you don't like the book, Skad3. Personally, Guntrip's book is dense, but fascinating. I'm two thirds of the way through. It's well worth reading for pwSPD and patience. Thanks for linking to it, Dazz.

Oh, dense and fascinating, certainly; no argument there. My personal dislike for the book is based entirely on its ill-founded (and frankly insulting) paradigm, not that one can't glean some useful insights with a little translation work.

Incidentally, my response to Dazz was directed at the timing and unsourced copy-pasta of their post, not against the undoubtably helpful link. My apologies for any inadvertent belligerence.

Skad3 wrote:@Dazz: Thank you for the obliviously irrelevant copy-pasta from Google Books.

No idea if the copy is from google-books (I'm not aware you can download a free pdf copy off there nor how to copy and paste), but the link ain't mine, I was looking into creative_nothing's repeated claim that Harry Guntrip said Heinrich Himmler was a perfect example of a schizoid and came across the link and thought I might as well post the pdf link on here, I've only had a cursory glance at it so far. I personally prefer a pdf than having to go online all the time to read a book on my laptop.

P.S. I find humorous you would think I would go through the whole ordeal of copy-paste onto a pdf and then upload it.

Dazz wrote:I was looking into creative_nothing's repeated claim that Harry Guntrip said Heinrich Himmler was a perfect example of a schizoid

I don't know what to think of that part. He writes about Himmler's apparent deeply schizoid personality within the context of ideology. In his obvious resentment of Nazism, which I believe is already a crucial mistake on its own within the context of science, as science is meant to be objective, I think he lost his professionality for a while, causing him to diagnose someone he likely never knew at all, and even doing so in the near total absence of any further argumentation.

The Emotional Life of Your Brain: How Its Unique Patterns Affect the Way You Think, Feel, and Live--and How You Can Change Them
This may help people having trouble with their emotions and attention.

Random lit review: a few months ago I finished Laing's "Divided Self". By far the most insightful exposition of the schizoid condition I've ever encountered. Highly recommend.