Discussion

In her paper Dr. Sheiner has further illuminated “the unitary process which is therapy, investigation, and the creating of theory and methodology”¹ of the schizophrenic process. She also defines some essential qualities that differentiate creative process from schizophrenic process.

Dr. Sheiner assumes that each individual has the capacity to organize information and experience in an expanding process of life, so that he can become more participating and more self-realizing. Further, she states that this participating/self-realizing process is a human biological necessity. This is the process of human creativity, which is the antithesis of the schizophrenic process, in which Dr. Sheiner has noted that the predominant theme is—he does not.

We in our group make the assumption that symptoms reflect pathologic solutions and the dynamic conflict between health and sickness. We are also committed to the assumption that a sick way of being is an attempt on the part of the organism to cope with a hostile environment. Dr. Sheiner then raises for consideration the question: Can the expression

he does not be the way of being that the schizophrenic must assume in order to stay alive? This question rests on the validity of another hypothesis, her basic idea of a unitary process of self-realizing/participating. She further postulates that this unitary process, both aspects of which must be constantly operating, must be met by the same process in the environment.

My own experience confirms Dr. Sheiner's basic assumptions. Dr. Sheiner is delineating a most important aspect of the determination of perception of self and its nature. She describer, and I agree, that the developing self must have in all areas the feeling permission to take in from the outside, with the understanding that what is given is to be used in the service of healthy growth and independence, and that the giving on the part of the environment is a function of the environment's self-realizing/participation process. Fr