ABSTRACT
Psychotherapy with a psychotic child presents special difficulties, of which the most outstanding is that of working with a patient who to all intents and purposes has almost no psyche. The quotation illustrates vividly the crisis through which the psychotic child has to pass during therapy. It also emphasizes that this crisis is not peculiar to the psychotic. Psychotherapists themselves need the sense of belonging to a nurturing and supporting group. For therapists who work with psychotic levels 'belonging' is even more of a necessity, and more than usual strain is likely to be put on a group by the therapist. The few psychotic children who have recovered spontaneously and those who have benefited from psychotherapy must have found some way around physiological impairments. There are various main stages in a reasonably successful psychotherapeutic treatment of a psychotic child.
