ABSTRACT
Pioneers of psychoanalysis tried to address therapy for psychotic patients using the technique that was effective for neurosis, which was also the method they had been trained in and were well acquainted with. Contemporary psychiatry, in particular, which seems to have altogether abandoned the psychodynamic and phenomenological orientation of the past, has undertaken to identify, as the latest edition of DSM shows, a series of symtomatologies for which suitable pharmacological solutions can readily be found. The child’s isolation and sensorial withdrawal are frequently considered normal and not the expression of his capture by the psychotic construction. Psychosis usually begins during childhood, with the child withdrawing into a world of sensorial fantasy. In the psychotic state, awareness of one’s individuality is lost, and perception of external reality as existing outside them is absorbed into the Ego, whose boundaries disappear. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
