ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates how the Interpersonal Dynamics (ID) consultation method may be adapted by individual clinicians to think about clinical material. The psychoanalytic perspective has contributed to an elucidation of psychosis, and Bion's concepts of non-psychotic and psychotic parts of the personality are particularly relevant. Psychosis can be conceptualised as a lifelong battle between psychotic and non-psychotic parts of the personality. Freud described the co-existence of two psychical attitudes, one which took account of reality and another which under the influence of the instincts detached the ego from reality, and he believed that when the abnormal one gained the upper hand then the situation was ripe for the onset of psychosis. Bion developed these ideas further by characterising the two coexisting psychical attitudes as the psychotic and non-psychotic parts of the personality. The psychotic part's aim was to impose a total withdrawal from reality by smashing up these sense impressions and projecting them into external objects outside the self.
