ABSTRACT
The psychoanalytic approach to the treatment of psychotic patients is based on the general assumption underlying all psychoanalytic thinking that psychological phenomena are amenable to understanding. The beginnings of psychoanalysis are in a way very modest. From the historical point of view, Sigmund Freud tried to extend his attempts at understanding psychological manifestations beyond neurosis and into the area of psychosis, as evidenced by his well-known analysis of the memoirs of Senatsprasident Schreber. Since psychoanalysis depends on working with the patient's transference, and since psychotics are, as Freud understood it, wholly narcissistic and form no transference, he could not visualize how psychoanalytic work could be done with them. In order to undertake a psychoanalytic investigation of a psychotic patient, certain requirements of the setting and management must be satisfied. Since psychoanalysis is basically an investigation, it is a method that elucidates the psychopathology of the illness.
