The establishment of the new diagnostic category, Schizotypal Personality Disorder (SPD), has stimulated biological studies of patients with this disorder. Such studies offer the potential of better understanding the diagnosis and treatment of SPD as well as more clearly defining the boundaries of the schizophrenic disorders. SPD has been studied in the clinical setting, in family studies of sc...

Evidence of long-standing social difficulties has been well documented in persons with schizophrenia. These deficits are often so rudimentary that a person with schizophrenia may never have developed the skills necessary to present as socially competent. Given the cognitive, biological, and neuroanatomical links between schizophrenia and schizotypal personality disorder (SPD), a study of social...

Certain Personality Disorders (PDs) have been found to be present in the prodromal phase of schizophrenia at a higher rate than other personality disorders. Although schizotypal, paranoid, and schizoid PDs are traditionally viewed as spectra for schizophrenia, research suggests that avoidant PD should be included in this group (e.g., Fogelson et al., 2007). The present study examines whether a ...

The present article comments on a classic study by Garfield (1947) then reviews research on the Rorschach and psychiatric diagnoses. Despite a few positive findings, the Rorschach has demonstrated little validity as a diagnostic tool. Deviant verbalizations and bad form on the Rorschach, and indices based on these variables, are related to Schizophrenia and perhaps to Bipolar Disorder and Schiz...

The relationship between self-reported social functioning, schizotypal traits, and obsessive-compulsive symptoms (OCS) was studied in a sample of 508 adolescents, of which 49.8% were male adolescents, with a mean age of 14.9 (SD, 1.6). The Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire-Brief, Maudsley Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory and Social Adaptation Self-evaluation Scale was administered. The result...

Whilst the syndrome approach to schizotypy has recently demonstrated differential correlates of a three-factor model of schizotypal personality, variations in the nature of these factors question a basic assumption of this approach. This study tested competing models of the factor structure of schizotypal personality using the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ) in a sample of 1,201 Mau...

Research suggests that schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) is a part of the spectrum of schizophrenia-related illnesses. This article hypothesizes that a deficit in the representation and maintenance of context is a core cognitive disturbance in schizophrenia and that SPD individuals should demonstrate context-processing deficits. To test this hypothesis, the authors administered 3 versions ...

Although an increase in the ratio of ventricular space to brain (ventricle-brain ratio), VBR) on computed tomography (CT) has been among the most robust findings in chronic schizophrenia, VBR has not been investigated in a large, well-characterized clinical population of patients with schizotypal personality disorder (SPD), a clinical entity with a phenomenologic, gentle biological, and treatme...