PSYCHE, 1955, Jg. 9, Ausgabe 6

In consequence to the world-wide development that we are witnessing, namely the constant devaluation of the role of the family as the social agency for the transmission of traditional values and conventions, the range of interest within psychotherapy is also undergoing a change. This becomes obvious in the shift of the psychotherapist's attention from hysteria to schizophrenia, from oedipal crises to the »complexe d'abandon« ( Mitscherlich's »Kaspar Hauser«), from paternal to matemal problems, from authority to Iove conflicts. Even the postulate of adaptation to an unquestioned outside world is no Ionger generally accepted. Instead psychotherapy is looking out for more fundamental and original elements which could be taken for the bases of new ways of realizing life und perceiving the world.

Abstaining from a discussion of the current theories on psychotherapy of schizophrenia, the paper enters at once into the detailed report of an individual case. The patient bad developed paranoid schizophrenia at the age of 35 and bad been in hospital for 20 years when the psychoanalytical treatment was taken up. In the course of about two years, the treatment succeeded in influencing, alleviating and finally dispelling the psycho-motoric excitement, the regressions, aggressivity and the abundant delusional system of the patient. It seems worthy of notice that the therapist was made to represent a succession of biographically based figures each of which allowed the patient to live experiences hitherto withheld to him, and to build up new human relationships. The symptoms can be understood as faulty solutions to overcome the chasm of inner extremes which had contributed to a complete dissolution of the patient's ego. The rejection by his environment confirmed the patient in his sense of infamy and dangerousness. Though being partly conscious of the symbolic character of his play with words, the patient succumbed to this obsessional habit. The social rehabilitation of the patient must take into consideration the still incomplete detachment from the therapist and should give him the possibility of express matemal instincts which had been suppressed thus far.