ABSTRACT
Manic-depressive disorders are widely recognized as having a biological basis, and the frequent genetic transmission of a predisposition to the illness has been convincingly established. An exclusively biomedical view of the nature and treatment of manic-depressive psychosis may confine psychiatrists to supportive and rehabilitative measures that may include helping the patient learn about life situations likely to disturb him. One of the achievements of the psychotherapy was helping the patient to accept the necessity of mood-stabilizing drug treatment. The chapter presents a case study of Harry who was admitted to a psychiatric ward at the age of 30 in a state of acute mania. The first psychotic breakdown took the form of a brief paranoid psychotic episode occurring soon after the first separation from Harry’s parents. Harry’s emerging insight was finding symbolic expression in his dream life, which provided a mental space where motivations could be discussed in the therapy rather than enacted mindlessly in the outside world.
