No psychiatrist can ignore individual psychotherapy of schizophrenia, nor can he escape practicing psychotherapy with schizophrenics even if he is inclined to do so.

Arieti describes psychotherapy of schizophrenic patients as he practiced it.

Although psychodynamic interpretations are much better known, interpretations concerning mechanisms and forms are also important, especially at an early phase of treatment.

In the studies on the origins of schizophrenia, the constitutional, cardiovascular, endocrinological, and neuropathological researches have lost ground. On the other hand, the genetic, biochemical, and neurophysiological approaches have gained support.

A large number of researchers have carried out biochemical investigations of schizophrenia, pursuing the hypothesis that a biochemical or metabolic error is at the basis of the disorder.

We shall study separately gesture, action, and volition. By gesture we mean a motion of the body (or of parts of it) that expresses a special psychological state of the individual. By action we mean a purposeful or meaningful behavior, even if the purpose or meaning is not known to the subject. Volition is the process of choosing and of initiating, continuing, actualizing, interrupting, or terminating the chosen action. When we study volition, we refer to the process of choosing and putting into effect the action.

A visit to a large mental hospital would be sufficient to point out that the number of endocrine disorders is not much larger among schizophrenics than in the general population, and that an occasional endocrinopathy should be considered an accidental concomitant finding.

Almost every schizophrenic retreats from society to a mild, moderate, or pronounced degree. The patient seems to live in a shell, or in a world of his own, or behind what has been called an autistic barrier.