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This posthumous paper presents an unusually clear condensation of the author's clinical experience and theoretical contributions. The symptoms of schizophrenia are overdetermined. For example, Fromm-Reichmann notes three interpretations of the fear of closeness so typical of schizophrenia: 1, her own thesis that the fear of closeness is directly due to the patient's fear of his own overwhelming hostility; 2, Bak's suggestion that the schizophrenic's weak ego organization is threatened by closeness; and 3, the older view that the schizophrenic is unable to give and receive love because he did not learn to love when he was very young. 'The old psychoanalytic rule of delaying interpretation until the psychotherapist is sure that he has found the one and only meaning of a patient's communication is, therefore, incorrect in the treatment of schizophrenia. It may also be incorrect in the treatment of the neuroses… [The psychotherapist] should be resigned to the multiplicity of meanings inherent in most schizophrenic communications, and to the inevitable fact that he is lucky if he grasps one aspect of a cryptic schizophrenic verbalization. If he does he may offer his interpretation whenever he thinks it will be helpful to the patient… One is just as little likely to understand the meaning of all facets of a patient's symptoms and communications as to understand all the elements of a dream.'
Fromm-Reichmann also emphasizes the development of countertransference problems in the treatment of schizophrenics as more severe than those in other patients. 'These problems deserve special attention… In work with the psychotic,