Psychotic Organisation of the Personality

Download or read book Psychotic Organisation of the Personality written by Antonio Perez-Sanchez and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-03-15 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book is a psychoanalytic understanding of psychosis as a particular organisation of the personality, based on 'psychotic personality' (Bion) and 'pathological organisations' (Steiner). The theoretical development is traced through Freud, Klein and Bion, along with contemporary Kleinian authors. An important role is granted to psychic pain as the cornerstone of psychopathology, and particularly to the psychotic patient's difficulties in dealing with it. Bion's distinction between "feeling psychic pain and suffering it" is considered an indicator when evaluating the patient's ability to cope with psychoanalytic treatment. The author's experience with a schizophrenic patient is related in detail, offering a view of the patient and her relationship with the analyst from various different angles, and showing how the psychoanalytic method can be used to treat psychosis.