[Long-term treatment of chronic psychiatric patients--a rewarding responsibility]

Psychotherapy is generally believed to be insight-oriented, and functional psychoses to be incurable and inaccessible for a psychotherapeutic approach. The present paper demonstrates through a concrete example that even a severe and chronic schizophrenia can be cured with special psychotherapeutic means. Such an attempt may seem unending, troublesome, and laborious, but by setting adequate goals, such an attempt is often very successful and therefore rewarding. A modern theoretical framework of psychiatric illness and a corresponding treatment approach are described.