ABSTRACT
O. Kernberg has outlined some of the reasons for this revival of interest in the psychoanalytic approach to schizophrenic disorders. Major psychotic disorders are one of the world’s most important health problems, and their cost, in terms of both human suffering and socio-economic burden, is very high. Psychoanalytic concepts can help explain how some psychotic patients improve in the course of treatment, why they improve, and why some fail to improve. Contact with psychotic patients can be emotionally disturbing, even for experienced professionals, and this is one reason why psychosis treatment is usually best conducted as work within a multidisciplinary psychiatric team. In the United States, many psychiatrists are worried about “dehumanizing” developments in psychiatry associated with the increasing emphasis on anti-psychotic drug treatments at the expense of interviewing skills and of understanding psychotic patients in terms of their personal development. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
