ABSTRACT
The great revolution of psychiatry took place in France in the time of Philippe Pinel and Esquirol, and then spread to various other countries: England, Germany, Italy, and elsewhere. In the psychoanalytic setting a great deal of loving and hating takes place between patient and analyst; envious attacks may be also present, particularly when the patient feels understood by somebody who is not him or herself. A patient who is very ill but not totally confused will make every attempt to get into the analyst’s mind not only as a way of escaping from his own delusional world but also in order to “know” what the analyst does with the patient’s feelings and thoughts. Some chronic or acute patients will try to commit suicide in a catastrophic transference situation whenever their delusional philosophy is deflated at a point when they are still not capable of building up a new and better one.
