Analytical Psychotherapy With Schizophrenic Patients

The Psychotherapy Of Schizophrenia is an interesting field still full of open questions. It throws light on fundamental human problems; it leads us to reconsider our clinical methods and the whole question of human fate; it permits us to observe at close quarters some mental mechanisms and therapeutic problems that are present in less severe degrees and on less deep levels in the neuroses; and in a more general sense it illustrates the development of psychic life in its archaic, unconscious aspects. It is in the psychotherapy of schizophrenia that the search for a standard therapeutic technique is refuted and proved to be an illusion, and the validity of an extremely flexible, individual approach confirmed—an approach such as the one Jung puts forward of the interplay between the therapist's own personal equation and the patient's whole individual situation.

In 1928 Brill had already drawn attention to the importance of a personal approach, and Jung in 1957 stated that the many theoretical assumptions on suitable methods of treatment ‘count for next to nothing’. Also, one would do well not to speak of a ‘method’ at all. What really matters is the personal commitment, the serious purpose, the devotion, indeed the self-sacrifice of those who give the treatment (p. 265). (Müller 1958) whose researches are along Freudian lines, also based his work on similar considerations. The scientific psychotherapy of schizophrenia is about half a century old, and it has been enriched in that time by many contributions (Benedetti has recently announced that he is preparing a bibliography of 1010 items), but it is nevertheless still a field in which pioneers move around in a largely unexplored jungle. In spite of the most differing and often divergent opinions several schools of thought are beginning to take shape, such as those linked with the names of (Fromm-Reichmann 1952), (Sullivan 1953), (Benedetti 1962), (Wexler 1952), (Rosen 1953) and (Sechehaye 1951).