Aspects of Relatedness in the Psychotherapy of Schizophrenia*

Closeness, we have learned to think, facilitates and enters into many of our most cherished experiences. Loving abandon, trust, a feeling of freedom, the willingness and ability to reveal ourselves, intimacy and tenderness are deeply related to closeness.

This is not surprising. This positive estimation of closeness reflects our increasing insight into the tremendous importance of related-ness as the matrix out of which human richness and creativity can develop. Quite naturally the ideally closest relationship, the one which exists between mother and infant, has come to be seen as the model as well as the central determinant for the child's later important relationships. The emotionally starved babies, observed by Rene Spitz12 who were withering away in apathy and depression, negatively prove the importance of this early emotional closeness. And Lewis Hill3 positively illuminates this importance through a beautiful comparison. In a close relationship, he points out, the child incorporates the mother's goodness necessary for his emotional growth just as he sucks the milk, its vitamins, proteins, minerals, and other substances necessary for his physical growth. Through studies of M. Mahler,8 T. Benedek,1 H. Searles,10 and many others, we know that in an optimal relationship this emotional nourishment is reciprocal. Through intricate processes of mutual empathy and identification the mother,