Social Anxiety Disorder and Cluster A Personality Disorders (Paranoid, Schizoid, Schizotypal)

This video answers the question: What is the relationship between social anxiety disorder and the Cluster A personality disorders? The Cluster A personality disorders include paranoid, schizoid, and schizotypal personality disorders. When we talk about social anxiety disorder, we're talking about a disorder where we see fear and anxiety in social situations. This can be in performance situations only like public speaking or in a variety of situations. The fear we often see associated with social anxiety disorder is a fear of negative evaluation. We also see with social anxiety disorder, there would be clinically significant distress or clinically significant impairment. The Cluster A personality disorders are in the odd, eccentric cluster as listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). Paranoid personality disorder is characterized by distrust and suspiciousness of others and believing that others have a malevolent motive. Schizoid personality disorder is characterized by a pattern of detachment from social relationships and a restricted range of emotions. Schizotypal personality disorder is characterized by social and interpersonal deficits, discomfort with close relationships, and cognitive and perceptual distortions and eccentricities. One theory about the Cluster A personality disorders is they have a relationship to schizophrenia. Schizophrenia may be on a continuum and Cluster A may be a position on that continuum.