You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
The separate psychoanalytic treatments of two patients, a mother and her daughter, offer a unique opportunity to learn about the origin and meaning of the daughter's psychotic breakdown in adolescence. The psychotic illness of the daughter—specifically, her hallucinations and delusions—can be understood within the context of her ongoing relationship with her mother.
The therapy of the mother provided a new dimension with which to understand the experience of her daughter. This was an unusual opportunity to obtain data generally not accessible about a patient's parents.
Most important, we learned that within the therapeutic relationship the mother's analyst experienced emotions that were a microcosm of the daughter's. We propose that the content of the girl's delusions and hallucinations were concretizations (Stolorow, Brandchaft, & Atwood, 1987) of the painful truths and dilemmas that existed in her relationship with her mother. These same issues came alive in the therapist's relationship with the mother as well. We regard the girl's symptoms of mental illness as the only means available to her to give a “voice” to critical subjective experiences that otherwise could not be acknowledged.
According to classical psychoanalysis, the essential deficit in psychosis