Considering group therapy the treatment of choice for chronic schizophrenics, the author tells of his experience with a group of patients who had been dysfunctional for periods ranging from six months to thirty years. He quotes Kubie,

"This process is a distortion of symbolic functioning": the symbol is a manifest representation of an unconscious latent idea in which the link between the symbol and what it represents has become inaccessible to conscious introspection. Recognizing this, the therapist encourages rather than represses symbolic verbalization, acting as intermediary between the talker and the listeners. This lessens emotional and personal isolation and has therapeutic effects.