ABSTRACT
The author met Sara in a state psychiatric hospital. In the psychiatric ward, she was heard demanding psychoanalytic therapy while being looked at with compassion for believing that some “talking cure” could produce the same effects as major psychotropic drugs. Several years after her various hospitalisations, she revealed in analysis that her “personal spirit” had been with her throughout her psychotic years, and that she was attentive to what was happening but powerless to let herself become known. Fundamentalism, whether it is religious, political, or psychological, is a flight from adulthood and appeals to many because life is so difficult. Involvement in an encompassing ideology is often the false solution to the compulsive use of ever-new tricks and toys, drugs and actions. From a psychoanalytic perspective, the point is that discontent could arise whether the subject attains a goal or does not attain it.
