Schizotypy

Schizotypy is a theoretical concept in psychology describing a continuum of personality traits and experiences that runs from ordinary imaginative or dissociative states at one end to experiences closely related to psychosis, particularly schizophrenia, at the other. It treats psychosis as a matter of degree along a dimension rather than as a condition that is simply present or absent, and it is not the same thing as schizotypal personality disorder. The concept grew out of Eugen Bleuler's challenge to the categorical disease model of psychosis and was developed further by Hans Eysenck and Gordon Claridge within personality theory; the term itself was coined by Paul Meehl and colleagues in 1964 after studying unusual experiences in the general population alongside symptom clustering among people diagnosed with schizophrenia. Claridge later identified four factors within schizotypy: unusual experiences, cognitive disorganization, introverted anhedonia and impulsive nonconformity.