In this course, we will read classical texts by the interpersonalists to learn more about this tradition’s approaches to treating psychosis. For each week, I have highlighted key themes that might help to guide our discussion: panic/fear, trauma, loneliness, fragmentation anxiety/death, hope/grief, and shame. Over the last couple of years, I have been writing papers on the psychotherapy for psychosis that touch upon core existential, affective, and interpersonal themes, such as openheartedness, grief, hope/despair, trust/mistrust, loneliness, and fear. I am going to include these papers as well that you can review if they are of interest. It is my hope that thinking about these universal themes and their relevance to psychosis may provide a humanistic framework that can provide a richer appreciation of the person behind the psychotic symptoms.

1/23 – Harry Stack Sullivan – Panic/fear

The Modified Psychoanalytic Treatment of Schizophrenia (1931)

The Earlier Manifestations of Mental Disorders: Matters Schizoid and Schizophrenic (1953)

1/30 – Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, Part 1 – Trauma

Transference Problems in Schizophrenics (1939)

Notes on the Development of Treatment of Schizophrenics by Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (1948

2/6 – Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, Part 2 – Loneliness

Psychotherapy of Schizophrenia (1954)

On Loneliness (1959)

2/13 – Harold Searles, Part 1 – Fragmentation/Death

The Schizophrenic’s Vulnerability to the Therapist’s Unconscious Processes (1958)

Schizophrenia and the Inevitability of Death (1961)

2/20 – Harold Searles, Part 2 – Hope /Grief

Concerning Therapeutic Symbiosis (1959)

The Development of Mature Hope in the Patient-Therapist Relationship (1977)

2/27 – Otto Will – Shame

The Schizophrenic Reaction and the Interpersonal Field (1964)

The Sense of Shame in Psychosis (1987)