The symptoms of schizoid personality disorder can be easily mistaken for a person being an introvert. However, it would be helpful to know that this runs in families, and that if you are on the lookout for it, you will indeed spot it fairly easily. A person suffering from schizoid personality disorder will be mostly indifferent to their immediate surroundings. They will not be affected by praise, criticism, love, affection, hatred, dislike, or any other emotion shown to them by other people. In all likelihood, they will lack close personal friends, and will probably not even have any close relationship with anyone except perhaps one or two close family members. The other thing that clearly indicates this disorder is the patient’s choice of activities – it will almost always be solitary pursuits as opposed to group activities. They will be so disinterested in communicating with another person that they may not even have an enjoyable or fulfilling sexual relationship with anyone. Moreover, they will not enjoy anything they do, or even others do for them. Mostly, people affected with schizoid personality disorder will be completely detached from their surroundings, and this would include people around them as well. The causes of schizoid personality disorder are neither well established not well documented. They may be a combination of genetics and environment at work here. People who have had a bleak, emotionless childhood are likelier to be afflicted than those who have had a childhood where they could have had everything they hoped for and more. But that is not to say that the latter category cannot be affected. Lack of emotional displays, loss of parents of family at a very young age, being stuck with relatives who do not want you, mental and physical and physical abuse are all situations that may lead to this problem. Likewise, being brought up in an environment that is far too strict of forbidding could also have a hand in it.
For treatment, the best possible solution lies in a combination of psychotherapy and willingness of the patient to change their situation. Informed counseling is always more effective than trying to fool the patient into something they are not aware of, as is sometimes the case. But this could also be impossibly difficult, as sometimes, patients do not think there is anything wrong with them to begin with. If there is medication to be dispensed, it must be done under medical guidance.