Schizotypal personality disorder and inappropriate feelings...

Question

When they say people with schizotypal or schizophrenia experience "inappropriate feelings", what exactly do they mean? Can someone please give me an example or two? Thanks!

Answer 1

As in not reacting to a situation within our social constraints. Imagine being told that a loved one has died - you're expected to cry, or look sad or shocked. If you start laughing, that could be described as an ínappropriate feeling'. Basically, the person in question is probably having problems with affect and emotions and finding it difficult to know how to react to situations.  

Answer 2

i think it means that your feeling is inappropriate to the situation.. like someone dies and you are sooo happy.. or you just won a game and you feel sad..

Answer 3

I haven't heard that about "inappropriate feelings", but it may come from this: folks with those two diagnoses have a difficult time accurately explaining and responding to reality--they have a hard time deciding reality from their own altered perceptions of what's going on. So the comment about inappropriate feelings may be more that they are responding to things that they think are "real", but others know are not, and so are seen as being inappropriate.  For example, if the person is hearing things or seeing things that aren't real, he may be inappropriately scared or angry, or laugh inappropriately from everybody else's perspective.