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The premise of this work is that all psychopathology, including the schizophrenic reaction, represents a tactical reorganization of behavior, cognition, and affect, which is initiated by the ego's self-preservation drive. Analytically, this notion is independent of the traditional dichotomy within the schizophrenias between regressive and restitutional phenomena, since catatonia seems to manifest both of these dynamics.5 Specifically, the regression implicit in catatonic stupor has been linked to the primary self-cathexis which precludes object relations.8,14,18,19,20 The restitution dynamic, on the other hand, has been stressed in Jung's9 interpretation of the mannerisms and stereotypies as morbid attempts to cathect onto objects, and in Fromm-Reichmann's7 interpretation of catatonic stupor as a compromise formation between the expression of hostility and its suppression.
Regression is a process which is available to the ego as a means of conflict resolution. Moreover, teleological regression1 has been posited to be an ego function which is used in creative (nonanxiety) endeavors15 despite the developmental origin of the process as a defensive ego maneuver.
Although dynamics of the neuroses and psychoses are similar in their common origin of underlying defensiveness6 the means of reorganization in avoiding anxiety differ widely according to the defensive algorithms specific to each pathology. The general mechanism in the schizophrenias is one of desynthesizing and disorganizing, with the overall motif being that such a disruption in the natural ego tendency for synthesis will minimize anxiety and pain resulting from synthesis or its implications.
It is possible to define the locus of the psychic embolism in several of the schizophrenic syndromes. One theoretical work of this nature actually links the cognitive splitting in childhood schizophrenia to a proposed treatment model which capitalizes on splitting as a means of avoiding the anxiety-laden implications of the m