ABSTRACT
In this chapter I discuss some theoretical models that describe the development of the self and its dynamic context. A model is a working tool and of use only insofar as it fulfils its function of increasing our understanding. When it no longer does so it must be revised or exchanged. We must have good enough theories and models of the mind if we want to set out to understand what happens to the personality before, during and after a psychosis. In this book I shall be using psychodynamic and cognitive theories of the ego and the development of the self. I do not know any other theory of personality with the same complexity that has the same clinical relevance.
