A diagnosis is made via a medical professional’s evaluation, based on specific criteria.
For medical professionals to diagnose schizotypal personality disorder, individuals must be intensely uncomfortable with and have very few close relationships and have odd thinking and behaviour. They must also have at least five of the following:
- Ideas of reference;
- Odd beliefs or magical thinking;
- Distorted perceptions;
- Odd thought and speech;
- Suspicions or paranoid thoughts;
- Inappropriate or limited expression of emotion
- Odd, eccentric, or peculiar behaviour and/or appearance;
- Lack of close friends or confidants, except first-degree relatives; and/or
- Excessive social anxiety that does not lessen with familiarity and is related mainly to paranoid fears
Also, symptoms must have begun by early adulthood.
Medical professionals must distinguish schizotypal personality disorder from schizophrenia, which causes similar, but more severe symptoms.
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