Individual psychotherapy of schizophrenia

Abstract

The work of the author and others in the field of psychotherapy of schizophrenia is said to have demonstrated that understanding the patient requires a special therapeutic relationship which is different from that in the psychoanalysis of neurosis because it implies an intrapsychic process that can be described as follows: Parts of the ill personality are introjected by the psychotherapist and parts of his personality are adopted by the patient, as shown by the fact that the dreams and the unconscious fantasies and striving of the therapist reflect the anxieties of the patient, and the dreams of the latter are structured by the inner movements of the former, as if there were a partially shared identity between them both. This phenomenon is called 'identification'. The psychotherapy of schizophrenia reveals realms of existence in which understanding is not only a function of personality, but also a transformation of personality by the act of being near the patient.