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This paper continues the authors' study of the ill (shadow) relation existing between
schizophrenics and their families (reviewed this Journal January, 1967). It illustrates, with case material, the developments which can arise when therapeutic contact with such families has been long enough to allow the intensely positive feelings of the pre-illness relation existing between the schizophrenic and a parent, to be revived. The parent's previous inability to allow this relation to ‘live again’, after the first breakdown, is termed ‘closure’ and is related (by statistical analysis) to certain specifically classified events in the parent's own history. These events invariably led to an experience of loss and ‘no return’ of a relative with whom the parent was in symbiotic relationship. The authors have some interesting and controversial things to say about the sort of work which can break through the deep involvement of the post ‘closure’ relationship with ‘a person who is not there’ to the liveliness and growing-point of the pre-illness relation. An important paper.