[Social roles in symbiotic psychoses]

On the basic of the observation of two sisters and two brothers who are suffering from a symbiontic psychosis and showed considerable social peculiarities, the significance of the extreme isolation in the development of this disease is pointed out. The isolation from the environment, which is considered to be hostile, led in each case to a grotesque living and delusion community, which was stabilised by the partners by, among other things, a rigid adoption of preshaped social roles.