Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis of Psychosis

Abstract

Psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy have been used to help neurotic patients by enlightening them about their unconscious psychology, its dynamic content and process. This same theory of treatment holds true for the psychotic states except that attention must be paid to the ego structure of the patient which organizes these dynamics. In psychosis, that organization is severely distorted. There is a structure to psychotic psychological phenomena that must be understood by both patient and therapist for treatment to be helpful. This is because without the analyst’s attending to structural aspects of ego dysfunction, the uncovering of more unconscious material is not usable to the patient whose particular ego deficits make it impossible to use uncovering for integrated enlightenment and change.