Reflections on Schizotypy, Schizophrenia, Psychoticism, and Psychopathology: What Do We Mean When We Use These Terms?
摘要
This chapter provides a brief overview of the evidence supporting the validity of the long-made assertion that schizotypic psychopathology represents an alternative expression of the underlying liability for schizophrenia, namely schizotypy. I offer a set of reflections related to current and future directions for neurobehavioral system-informed study of schizotypy based on nearly 40 years of laboratory research on the topics of schizotypy and schizophrenia. I address the issue of the meaning of the term personality in relation to schizotypic psychopathology and raise substantive and methodological questions for their heuristic value. The term “psychoticism” is considered, and it is recommended that it be abandoned in psychopathology research given its lack of conceptual clarity and failure to predict psychosis. I conclude with a list of items that I suggest need to be borne in mind by those researchers seeking to probe neurobehavioral individual differences in relation to schizotypy. Finally, I note that the present chapter is a brief, necessarily selective, overview of some issues in this area of inquiry, and those seeking a more in-depth treatment are encouraged to consult Lenzenweger (Schizotypy and schizophrenia: the view from experimental psychopathology. Guilford Press, New York, 2010, Oxford textbook of psychopathology. Oxford University Press, New York, 2015, 2023, Schizophr Bull 4(suppl 2): S564–S569, 2018, 2020).