Approaching personality problems from a genetic and dynamic point of view, one must seek to understand the individual in terms of his own life history with its specific emotional problems. Even psychotic manifestations can be understood as specific aspects of consistent psychological developments. All symptoms are natural and logical within the personality structure. The patient's life history will show that the psychological techniques of the premorbid personality are fundamentally the same as those which later create the psychotic symptom. Characteristics which serve as mechanisms of defense and which are known as reaction formations, can scarcely be called pathological unless they function with unusual force or frequency.