Hope for persons afflicted with severe mental illnesses: Crucial ideas

The review start by pointing out that the statement about schizophrenia in DSM-V-TM is contradictory. It claims that genetic factors play a strong contribution in determining the risk of schizophrenia. In a second part of the sentence DSM-V-TM writes: “most individuals who have been diagnosed with schizophrenia have no history of psychosis (DSM-V-TM, 103).

This point to the psychosocial work rehabilitation program reported by Harding, the “Open Dialogue” developed by Seikkula in Finland and the “ego-structuring” method developed by Villemoes as three successful psychological methods for treating schizophrenic patients.

Next, I rely on the ideas of Lacan to demonstrate that schizophrenia is the result of the patient not having been able to correct the fantasies which human beings develop as children, i.e., my mother is omnipotent and I am everything my mother could want. These two fantasies are normally corrected if the child is confronted by the fact that the child sees that the mother has an interest in a third, normally the father. To refer to this change introduced by the internalization of the figure of the father Lacan uses the concept of “paternal metaphor.” That concept means that the child radically changes in its psychological structure while remaining the same child: e.g., John Wild. In language we have a word for something that is both the same and different, like the word chicken applied to humans. Language calls such a use of a word a metaphor. As the psychic change provoked in the child happens by the introduction of the father, Lacan refers to the change as the implementation of the paternal metaphor.

The paper end by discussing the successful methods invented by Prouty, Karon and Villemoes for treating schizophrenic patients. I demonstrate that each of these three therapists start by accepting the imaginary fantasies of their patients. These three therapists then find ways to introduce the laws of language and of the symbolic, i.e., if… then. This allows the patient to slowly confront the reality and be liberated from their delusions.