ABSTRACT
The supposed basis for the prescription of psychotropic drugs for a psychotic, is a "chemical imbalance" of unknown or supposedly, as yet undiscovered composition. The interpersonal theory of psychoanalysis once used by the workers at Chestnut Lodge is a kind of watered down psychoanalytic treatment. Hyman Spotnitz used a method he called "modern," in which he attacked the patient, making no distinction between the patient and his illness. Indeed, in general medicine itself, the same kind of reasoning is often applied to physical illnesses, and ascribed to psychological problems. Elyn R. Saks has had so little of customary psychoanalysis, that she rejects the schizophrenogenic mother theory with contempt. At the Salzburg conference, Sigmund Freud commented, "Psychoanalysis was not possible with dementia praecox patients: all that could be done was to use what had been learned from neurotic patients as a guideline to the symptoms and then confront the psychotic patient directly”.
