The Dilemma and the Challenge of Being Schizophrenic*

Modern theories of illness have been of two types. The first large group shares the concept of possession prevalent in many primitive theories: instincts, chemicals, or structural defects are thought to be the cause of the malfunction, and cure occurs when the infestation is somehow eradicated. The physician looks at the symptoms as a secondary result of a more essential, but invisible aberration.

The second group of theories conceives of illness as difference in function, as a deviation from normal. The organism is affected by physical or psychological factors: its response, its suffering, is the interaction of these factors and is the illness. As part of the gestalt of this concept of disease the actions and reactions of the patient are studied to develop operational definitions of disease processes. The outlining of pertinent patterning leads to the consideration of the various possibilities for interruption of the disease process. In psychiatry, supportive psychotherapy, crises intervention, and hypnosis are often used to treat the specific aberrations which resulted from the organismic interaction (Hill 1968).

I believe that our new concepts of the functioning of the nervous system suggest the possibility of a new physiological and psychological understanding of the nature of what we call disease. We are learning from neurophysiologists (Pribram 1971) that the organism operates as a continual organizer of the differentiations