ABSTRACT
There are two main theories about the psychological origins of mental illness: the 'defence theory' and the 'confusion theory'. The 'confusion theory', which springs from various sources, but has had its major impetus in the work on schizophrenic families in the past two decades, asserts that a person becomes ill when others present reality to him in such a confusing way that it is impossible for him to make sense of it. The inequality with which we structure our world is nowhere more unthinkingly accepted than in the relationship between adult and child. It may seem surprising, in view of Freud's contribution to the ethos of permissive child-rearing, to criticize his theory for its failure to narrow the gulf between parent and child; but the paradox of Freud is that his genius led him to recognize the child's emotional needs yet he never quite emancipated himself from an authoritarian attitude towards these needs.
