title: The Schreber case revisited: schizophrenia as a disorder of self-regulation and of interactional regulation.
abstract: The Schreber case has been used by generations of psychoanalysts and psychiatrists to exemplify many features of the psychoanalytic conception of psychosis. It has generally been considered the origin of a great debate in psychoanalysis as to whether schizophrenia is a disorder of nature or of nurture. I seek in this contribution to proffer a newer theory of psychopathology, one which is based upon the conception of primary and secondary disorders of attachment (bonding) and which presents itself clinically as disorders of self-regulation and of interactional regulation. I attempt to explicate this theory in the Schreber case by demonstrating that his symptoms revealed: (a) failures of normal mental state regulations, (b) the emergence of symptoms which then secondarily and pathologically restore regulation in a pathological manner, and finally (c) his/her very symptoms seem to regulate a state in the family system and/or in the system of the culture at large.
mesh_terms: D003702:Delusions / Q000523:psychology; D004532:Ego; D005190:Family; D005783:Gender Identity; D006706:Homeostasis; D006801:Humans; D006998:Hypochondriasis / Q000523:psychology; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D009769:Object Attachment; D011574:Psychoanalytic Theory; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D014167:Transference, Psychology