HELPING CHRONIC SCHIZOPHRENIC PATIENTS TO EXPERIENCE THEIR TRUE FEELINGS BY MEANS OF PSYCHODRAMA

Abstract

One is frequently impressed with the chronic schizophrenic patient's apparent lack of emotion. He denies that he feels, or he affirms feelings but gives no evidence of their reality. Sometimes, when it seems that he teeters on the brink of an emotional breakthrough, he resorts to delusional expressions and
thus buries his feelings once more. This emotional flatness of the schizophrenic
is the major problem in working with him, for, so long as it exists, there is
no chance for spontaneity to come forth. The schizophrenic is the example
par excellence of the separation of man's intellect from his feelings. The
schizophrenic often represents the exaggeration of twentieth century sickness,
the existential confrontation with nothingness. The schizophrenic is more
pathetic in that he cannot seem to assimilate even those paper-thin defenses
which the "so-called" normal person may sometimes use to push away the
realization of his emptiness.