ABSTRACT
The Freudian adventure could be seen as a quest for the mechanisms specific to psychosis without being in contradiction with those of neurosis. In fact the author's began the preliminary stage of the psychodrama a few months later than had been planned after the initial interview. John's analytic adventure thus shows that it is possible for patients to open up to the imaginary dimension and to the unknown, without being terrified of drive-related violence overwhelming them. The history of the concepts of dissociation and splitting, as described by Kapsambelis, 2007, bears witness to Freud's wish to maintain some connection between the mechanisms of neurosis and those of psychosis. Bleuler, 1911, introduced the concept of schizophrenia into classical psychiatry, was, it is true, faithful to some extent to Freud's ideas, but he did reify the process of psychosis; for Bleuler, Spaltung is a side-effect of a primary deficit corresponding to an actual disintegration of mental processes.
