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Those concerned with developments in the study and treatment of schizophrenia will be interested in this collection of six original papers and twenty-six articles reprinted from the literature during January 1973 through December 1974. The intent behind the series, of which this is the fourth, is to make more readily available selected material “in every area of the attack on the schizophrenic syndrome.” There are sections on diagnostic and theoretical conditions; attention, cognition, and perception; biochemical studies; psychophysiologic studies; genetic studies; social, developmental, and existential studies; family studies; prognosis; and the therapy of schizophrenia. Forty-six other pertinent articles not included in the book are briefly summarized.
Among the articles of particular interest to practitioners of modern psychoanalysis is one by Jarl E. Dyrud and Philip S. Holzman: “The Psychotherapy of Schizophrenia: Does it Work?” (pp. 492-500). The authors point out, before undertaking any answer, that psychotherapy “does not consist of a definite set of operations, and the essence of the procedures is still a matter of personal preference, bias, and lively controversy. There is no ‘dose of psychotherapy’” (p. 493).
Dyrud and Holzman make special mention of
a small number of dedicated psychotherapists who have devoted many years to the treatment of small numbers of patients [and] have reported sporadic success with their schizophrenic patients: these include Fromm-Reichmann, Searles, Wexler, Will, Sullivan, and Ekstein…The theoretical rationale of this approach to psychotherapy assumes that the schizophrenic condition, like a symptom neurosis, is a compromise outcome of unconscious conflicts, resolvable with less pain to the person by the psychoanalytic exploration. Without denying the role of internal conflict in schizophrenic disorganization, we would opt for relegating it to a contributory significance, secondary to what Freud called a “narcissistic
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