ABSTRACT
The mental health system has to contain and care for patients with profound psychological difficulties and often with fragile egos that are prone to fragmentation in the face of painful psychological anxieties and conflicts. The danger is that mental health professionals respond to this painful situation by becoming mechanistic in their thinking, leaving patients feeling that they are being cared for by professionals who respond to their attack on psychological meaning by keeping patients and their suffering at a distance. The psychotic part of the personality may represent a destructive aspect of a patient’s mind, but it needs to be thought about and accounted for. Mental health professionals need to try to tune in to the psychotic wavelength in order to support their patients’ struggle with the psychotic aspects of the self. Patients with chronic conditions may need long-term support for the healthy aspect of themselves, and this needs to be tolerated and understood by mental health professionals.
