on April 19, 2025, the ІІІ module of the One-Year Training Program: Personality Disorders led by Otto Kernberg, MD officially started.
The first workshop of Module III was dedicated to the topic of Schizoid, schizotypal, avoidant personality disorders.There is no doubt about the existence of schizoid personality disorder. But it raises an ongoing dilemma: What dynamic lies at its core? And what about schizotypal and avoidant personality disorders? Is it even appropriate to separate them as distinct diagnostic categories? Together with Otto Kernberg, we explored these and many other important questions throughout the workshop.
Let us briefly highlight the key points of this session:
The workshop was divided into three sections, which included:
1. Theoretical Section – Two lectures with a total duration of 2 hours and 30 minutes. Key topics included:
First Lecture: Schizoid and Schizotypal Personality Disorders – Diagnosis and Treatment
- Understanding the concept of schizoid personality disorder
- Characteristics of patients with schizoid personality structure
- The nature of the schizoid personality
- Psychiatric description: strengths and limitations
- Social and intimate relationships in schizoid personalities
- Clinical profile of schizotypal personality disorder
- Comparison between schizoid and schizotypal personality disorders
- The DSM-IV perspective on schizotypal personality
- The DSM-V perspective on schizoid and schizotypal personality
- Dynamics of schizoid and schizotypal personality
- Schizoid and schizotypal disorder in clinical situations
- Features of therapy for schizoid and schizotypal personality
- Examples of cases with schizoid and schizotypal personality disorder
- Transference-focused and supportive psychotherapy for patients with these disorders
- and more
Second Lecture: Avoidant Personality Disorder
At the beginning of this lecture, Dr. Kernberg openly expressed his skepticism about avoidant personality disorder as a separate diagnosis (based on both personal clinical experience and that of colleagues at the Personality Disorders Institute). He presented the official DSM-based description, followed by his own clinical argument that avoidant personality is, in fact, a milder form of the schizoid spectrum.
Main topics included:
- Characteristics of avoidant personality disorder
- Differential diagnosis with:
* Schizoid personality
* Narcissistic personality
* Histrionic personality
* Depressive-masochistic personality
* Paranoid personality
- How to diagnose an avoidant personality? What should you look for in the first place?
- Transference patterns in avoidant patients
- Treatment strategies and prognosis
- Overlapping and distinguishing traits between schizoid and avoidant personalities
- Pre-Oedipal issues in schizoid spectrum patients
- General prognostic indicators for therapy
- And more...
Otto Kernberg presented a comprehensive and precise picture of schizoid, schizotypal, and avoidant personality disorders. He clearly outlined their core traits and emphasized the key differentiating features that help clinicians reliably distinguish between them.
Using clinical cases from his own practice, Dr. Kernberg grounded the theoretical material in real-world examples, providing participants with a deep and structured understanding of schizoid-spectrum personality disorders.
2.Practical Section – Public Clinical Supervision with a total duration of 1 hour and 30 minutes:
During the supervision, we reviewed one of two cases of prolonged therapy, which allows workshop participants to learn the key aspects of psychotherapeutic work through clinical examples. The supervision illustrates all the technical aspects of effective psychotherapy, such as:
- Technical neutrality
- Containment
- Clarification technique
- Interpretation, etc.
These are fundamental psychotherapeutic techniques that Dr. Otto Kernberg uses in his work with patients and teaches our participants during the workshops.
Dr. Otto Kernberg teaches us to explore every aspect of our patients' lives and provides insightful interventions on how to tactfully and directly clarify these details during therapy.
3.Question and Answer Session:
This part of the workshop brings together the most interesting and diverse questions from participants, along with thorough responses from Dr. Otto Kernberg, who often enriches his answers with clinical examples from his over 70 years of practice.
This time, the participants asked Dr. Otto Kernberg the following questions:
- Fragmented affect of schizoid individuals: What could be the psychodynamic and etiological causes of such fragmentation of affect?
- Do people with schizoid disorder understand social games? flirting, for example.
- Love and sexual life of schizoid individuals. How can it develop and what typical problems can we observe?
- Where is the line between schizoid and schizotypal personality disorder?
- How can schizoid and narcissistic disorders be combined. How often do they "go hand in hand" and what does it look like in terms of symptoms?
- Can a person have both depressive and schizoid personality disorders at the same time?
- What are the signs that can differentiate schizoid from paranoid personality disorder?
- Dr. Krenberg, what is your assessment of the possibilities of group supportive therapy for patients with schizoid personality disorder?
- Can you give examples in which specific jobs and/or areas of profession patients with schizoid and patients with schizotypal PD are most likely to be found/feel most comfortable in?
- What goals for intrapsychic change can be expected in the psychotherapy of schizoid patients? Is it possible for schizoid personalities to move toward a neurotic level of functioning?
– and other questions.
This time, there were an exceptionally large number of questions, but this did not prevent Otto Kernberg from providing deep and structured answers to each of them.
Can I join this training program and watch the workshop recording?
Yes, of course!
This workshop is part of Module IІI of the training program and is already available for viewing in video recording.
Module IIІ is highly comprehensive and covers the following topics:
- Schizoid, schizotypal, avoidant disorders
- Paranoid disorder
- Hypochondriacal disorder
Registration for Modules I and ІІ (in recordings) is also open…
Don’t hesitate – become one of the participants who gained knowledge from a true classic of psychotherapy – Dr. Otto Kernberg!
Details and registration:
https://pd.borderline.institute/pd?utm_source=tfp_site
*Please note that the program will not be repeated in 2025-2026
Sincerely,
TFP-Group Ukraine
Ukrainian Institute for Personality Disorders Studies