Self Psychology and Psychosis

In this groundbreaking volume, the authors bring us into the immediacy of the analyst's consulting room in direct confrontation with the thought disorder, delusions and hallucinations of their patients grappling with psychosis. From the early days of psychoanalysis when Freud explicated the famous Schreber case, analysts of all persuasions have brought a variety of theories to bear on the problem of schizophrenia and the other psychoses. Here, as William Butler Yeats notes, 'the centre cannot hold' and any sense of self-esteem - positive feelings about oneself, a continuous sense of self in time and a functional coherence and cohesion of self - is shattered or stands in imminent danger. What makes psychoanalytic self psychology so compelling as a framework for understanding psychosis is how it links together the early recognition of narcissistic impairment in these disorders to the 'experience-near' focus which is the hallmark of self psychology.