Gordon Claridge

Gordon Sidney Claridge is a British psychologist and author, best known for his theoretical and empirical work on the concept ofschizotypy or psychosis-proneness.

Claridge took his first degree in Psychology at University College, London, in 1953. His PhD work was at the Institute of Psychiatry, London, jointly supervised by Hans Eysenck and Neil O’Connor. He qualified under in-service training as a clinical psychologist, and from 1957-61 worked as Eysenck’s Research Assistant, based in the Royal Victoria Military Hospital, Netley, Southampton.

Claridge then moved to Bristol as Head of Clinical Psychology at Barrow Hospital and part-time lecturer in the Bristol University Department of Psychology. From 1964-74 he ran the Glasgow University clinical psychology training course as (eventually) Reader in Clinical Psychology. He was awarded a DSc from Glasgow University in 1971.

In 1974 Claridge moved to Oxford as University Lecturer in Abnormal Psychology at the Department of Experimental Psychology and Fellow of Magdalen College. For the first five years of this appointment he ran the Oxford University clinical psychology training course.

He is currently Emeritus Professor of Abnormal Psychology in Oxford University and Emeritus Fellow of Magdalen College. He is also Visiting Professor in the Department of Psychology, Oxford Brookes University. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society, Associate of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and past president of the International Society for the Study of Individual Differences.

Claridge is best known for his work in developing the theoretical construct of schizotypy. Schizotypy is the putative dimension, normally distributed throughout the population, whose defining characteristic is that of proneness to develop schizophrenia in particular and psychosis in general.

Schizotypy as a concept overlaps, partially but not completely, with Eysenck’s concept ofpsychoticism.

Factor analytical studies of schizotypy by Claridge and others using questionnaire measures suggest it has up to four relatively independent components.

Research also suggests that in some people milder forms of schizotypy may be adaptive and linked to creativity.