ABSTRACT
The John Bowlby, whose hundredth birthday their celebrate this evening, deserves the eternal gratitude of every citizen of their planet for his gargantuan contribution to the science of humankind. Contemporary psychiatric and psychopathological investigators no longer regard schizophrenia as a result of demonic possession; rather, they understand schizophrenia as a genetically transmitted neurological disease. Though compelling, the standard biomedical conception of schizophrenia as a brain disease best treated with pharmacotherapeutic substances poses certain crucial problems. Unfortunately, in spite of numerous contributions from psychoanalytical writers on both the metapsychological theorization about schizophrenia and on its psychotherapeutic treatment, few have dared to formulate testable hypotheses concerning causation. In 1956, Professor Bruno Bettelheim, survivor of the concentration camps at Dachau and Buchenwald, published a classic essay on "Schizophrenia as a Reaction to Extreme Situations". Death of a twin in utero might also feature as a potentially toxic agent in the development of adult schizophrenia.
