ABSTRACT
Neurosis mirrors, perversion fascinates and terrifies, psychosis confronts us with an uncanny riddle. While in the old days people used to listen to the psychotic patient, nowadays the whole focus is on pharmacological and neurobiological solutions and we risk losing the rich clinical knowledge of former times. Diagnosis of psychosis must focus on two interrelated structural characteristics: firstly, the psychotic way of being-in-language; secondly, the relation toward others resulting from that linguistic position. It is striking the way psychopharmalogical treatments become less and less effective depending on the extent of the psychotic development. In the final phase, paraphrenia, things have once again calmed down, although the psychotic structure is maintained. Dual-type problematics are found in neurosis and perversion as well, albeit with one important difference: in the latter two, there is always a potential for triangulation.
