ABSTRACT
Beginning with the work of Melanie Klein, a group of British and European analysts formulated models of psychosis based on the assumption of a single developmental pathway leading to the normal/neurotic mind. The psychotic person is believed to be basically flawed in the capacity to attain and sustain such an organization, and hence is arrested at the point of a mental split into normal and psychotic parts. These models, and those of the American ego psychology school examined in Chapter 6, are all based on the concept that there is but a single developmental pathway with normality and neurosis as the maturational end point. The theories of Fairbairn offer a rare contrast. He formulated a model of development based on gradations of psychosis, based upon the idea that we are all psychotic (schizoid), more or less.
