ABSTRACT
Psychotic disorders bring immense suffering to victims and relatives and constitute the heaviest burden on mental health services throughout the Western world. Although a great deal is known about the nature of these devastating disorders, many conjectures are still to be confirmed or refuted, and much remains to be understood. The precise mode of action of biological methods of treatment has yet to be elucidated, and claims for psychoanalysis and its offspring, psychoanalytic psychotherapy, as an effective treatment for psychotic disorders have not been substantiated at the level of formal scientific proof.
