ABSTRACT
Adolf Meyer was a pivotal figure in American psychiatry in the first half of century and his work and theories have had an important impact on thinking on Schizophrenia at a number of different levels. Classical psychodynamic models of Schizophrenia, as well as many biological models, postulate that the damage that causes Schizophrenia happens at an early stage of development. The crucial factors in Harry Stack Sullivan’s thinking were that early interaction between child and parent was crucial in the development of personality and, in particular, crucial in the aetiology of Schizophrenia. Fromm-Reichmann’s model of Schizophrenia incorporated the some essential elements of maternal overprotection and maternal rejection. In Melanie Klein’s model of Schizophrenia, the child has intense, sadistic, envious impulses that lead to the overuse of withdrawal, splitting and projective identification. Both Arieti and Giovacchini regarded Schizophrenia as being the result of abnormalities in the child’s environment.
