ABSTRACT
APD appeared when Millon (1999) distinguished it from schizoid personality disorder, with, respectively, painfully inhibited social contacts and detached indifference to relationships. When making contact with others, APDs feel inadequate, afraid of their negative opinions, inhibited, anxious and embarrassed (Akhtar 1986). They feel alienated in two-way relationships and excluded from groups, with never a full and satisfying sense of sharing and belonging:
P: It was a dinner with school friends with everyone remembering things from their childhood together; the real problem was my alternative as I hadn't even had a happy childhood to relate . . . No happy experience to offer, to defend myself from the others' stories.
