This book explores the psychoanalytic treatment of a patient with psychosis from a range of different psychotherapeutic perspectives.

The psychotherapeutic treatment of psychotic individuals is both rare and controversial with a limitation in availability of clinical material. As psychoanalytically oriented therapy is private, it is almost impossible to “witness” the actual human interaction of therapeutic process. While catatonia is a rare disorder, there are many attempts to hypothesize a theoretical psychic structure for the range of disorders called psychotic. Therapists rarely report “successful” outcomes of long and unusual treatments. In the book, a fragment of the treatment of a catatonic adolescent is reconstructed as an endeavor in representing that which is not clinically representable. Following the case report, which also reveals part of the history of the therapist, prominent analytic clinicians of different theoretical orientations share their understanding and comment on the material revealed.

With a fresh perspective on psychoanalytic treatment of psychosis, this book is essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, and clinicians involved in the treatment of psychosis.

Bennett Roth received a Ph.D. degree from New York University then trained in both psychoanalysis and group therapy. He has contributed to journals in both fields with particular interest in difficult patients. Following consulting work after 9/11, he researched group violence that resulted in A Group Analytic Approach to Mass Violence.