Psychodynamic perspective of Schizophrenia :-

Freud’s most

influential idea

regarding

schizophrenia was

that this disorder was

a form of regression.

According to Freud , schizophrenics are

people whose egos are not strong enough to

cope effectively with unacceptable id

impulses. Overwhelmed by anxiety , they

simply give up the fight and regress to the

early oral stage, a period in which there is as

yet no separation between ego and id and

therefore no struggle between the two. This

regression to an egoless phase accounts for

the schizophrenic’s break with reality , since it

is the ego that mediated between the self and

reality.

To this day, anxiety

motivated regression is

still the major theme of

psychodynamic writing

on schizophrenia.

A good example of the latter trend is the work of

Harry Stack Sullivan (1962), who devoted much of his

theoretical writing to schizophrenia. According to

Sullivan, the cause of the schizophrenic’s anxiety is

not id impulses but a damaging mother-child

relationship. To Sullivan and many other post-Freudians, schizophrenia represents a gradual

withdrawal from other people. This process begins in

early childhood, with anxious and hostile interactions

between parent and child. Scared off from intimacy

with others, the child takes refuge in a private world of fantasy. This initiates a vicious cycle : the more the

child withdraws, the less opportunity he or she has to

develop the trust, confidence, and skills necessary for

establishing close bonds with others, and the fewer

the bonds, the greater the anxiety.

The spiral continues until, in early adulthood,

the person is faced with a new and more

taxing set of social demands- work, marriage,

and so forth. In the face of these challenges,

the person becomes so swamped with anxiety

that he/she withdraws completely, closing

down those mental facilities (e.g.,

communication, perception, reasoning) that

are the bridge to the world of other people. It is

the final withdrawal that we call the

schizophrenic break, though according to Psychodynamic writers, it is only the

culmination of a gradual disengagement from

human relationships.