The Michigan Psychoanalytic Council

A discussion paper by Bertram P. Karon, Ph.D. was added to the The Michigan Psychoanalytic Council site today. Here is a description of the file:

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No one who read Frieda Fromm-Reichmann's paper Transference problems in schizophrenia, could reasonably think about persons with schizophrenia in the same way as before. Schizophrenia is a human experience with meaning, meaning that is hard to uncover, but it only takes patience, kindness, a tolerance for not understanding, a willingness to understand ourselves as well as the human condition at its most painful, a tolerance for desperate defenses, and a willingness to take psychoanalytic ideas seriously when patients talk about them. Families and professionals are settling for treatments which aim at making the patient a lifelong cripple who is not too disturbing. Psychoeducational programs usually give false information which makes worse the burdens of patients and families. The ultimate genetic experiment, the Nazi sterilization and annihilation of patients, led to no decrease in schizophrenia. Long term follow-up studies show one third full recovery and another third social recoveries in twenty-five years with or without treatment-- and psychological treatments before the neuroleptic era, from moral treatment to modern psychoanalytic therapies produced superior results, but are not being used. The central role of terror and the genesis and psychotherapy of symptoms, including delusions and hallucinations, are described.

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