Psychosis and analytic therapy: A complex relationship

In this paper I try to summarise the contributions of some analysts who have been engaged in the therapy of psychotic patients. I have divided them into two categories: one following intuitive-non-systematic models, and the other theoretical-systematic models. My hypothesis is that the psychotic process is formed and nourished in childhood withdrawal, where the child constructs an alternative world that is dissociated from psychic reality. The patient no longer uses his mind as a thinking organ but as a tool to produce sensations that make psychic and emotional reality incomprehensible; this state of mind produces hallucinations and delusions. There is no doubt that psychoanalysis is faced with an important task as regards theoretical and clinical research in the field of psychosis. No therapeutic method possesses such a useful and effective observational tool as clinical psychoanalysis, which allows daily contact with the patient and continuous reflection on his transformations.