Acute Catatonic Schizophrenia

In the midst of the many baffling and disappointing problems that the analyst encounters in working with schizophrenia, it may usually be observed that the acute turbulent catatonic episode seems to bring into view most of the psychic ingredients, expressed as archetypal or primordial images, necessary for the further growth of the patient's consciousness. Essentially the head-splitting puzzle for the therapist then becomes how to mediate to the patient's ego the substance of his unconscious experiences in a way that is both meaningful and acceptable.

Among the primordial images that appear in unconscious productions of various sorts, Jung has discovered one class that describes a centre of order and circumference of delimitation which he has called the self (Jung, 1928, et al.), which he has studied extensively (1950, 1951), and which he has related to the ego in a manner relevant to our problem (1944, 1954). The self is expressed in rather multiform symbols, but in myth and ritual and in fantasy its various aspects all seem to interrelate in a manner consistent enough to justify his hypothesis that the various forms derive from a common root or centre. This centre is the classical locus of the major symbolic processes of birth or creation, of death or descent, and of rebirth or renewal.

In catatonic schizophrenia the central and most dynamic issue, I feel, concerns the self-image; this refers to two interrelated systems, the ego's severely damaged view of itself, and the ego's root archetype, the self, which tends to compensate this debasement with an exalted play of fantasy imagery full of its lost potential. Since I use the term self-image regularly in discussing this problem, I wish to avoid confusion of terms and call the former the personal self-image and the latter the central archetype; this archetype is here conceived as making its appearance at all phases of life and in all kinds of states of integration and disintegration, and thus is not always associated