split

"According to Seinfeld, schizoid individuals frequently act out with substance and alcohol abuse and other addictions which serve as substitutes for human relationships. The substitute of a nonhuman for a human object serves as a schizoid defense. Providing examples of how the schizoid individual creates a personal relation with the drug, Seinfeld tells how "one addict called heroin his 'soothing white pet.' Another referred to crack as his 'bad mama.' I knew a female addict who termed crack her 'boyfriend.' Not all addicts name their drug, but there often is the trace of a personal feeling about the relationship." The object relations view emphasizes that the drug use and alcoholism reinforce the fantasy of union with an internal object, while enabling the addict to be indifferent to the external object world. Addiction is therefore viewed as a schizoid and symbiotic defense.

S. C. Ekleberry suggests that marijuana "may be the single most egosyntonic drug for individuals with SPD because it allows a detached state of fantasy and distance from others, provides a richer internal experience than these individuals can normally create, and reduces an internal sense of emptiness and failure to participate in life. Also, alcohol, readily available and safe to obtain, is another obvious drug of choice for these individuals. Some will use both marijuana and alcohol and see little point in giving up either. They are likely to use in isolation for the effect on internal processes."

According to Gunderson, people with SPD "feel lost" without the people they are normally around because they require a sense of security and stability. However, when the patient's personal space is violated, they feel suffocated and feel the need to free themselves and be independent. People who have SPD tend to be happiest when they are in a relationship in which the partner places few emotional or intimate demands on them; it is not people as such that they want to avoid, but both negative and positive emotions, emotional intimacy, and self disclosure.

It is possible for schizoid individuals to form relationships with others based on intellectual, physical, familial, occupational, or recreational activities as long as these modes of relating do not require or force the need for emotional intimacy, which the affected individual will reject.

Donald Winnicott summarizes the schizoid need to modulate emotional interaction with others with his comment that schizoid individuals "prefer to make relationships on their own terms and not in terms of the impulses of other people," and failing to attain that, they prefer isolation."