Countertransference aspects of pharmacotherapy in the treatment of schizophrenia

Emphasis is placed on largely unconscious aspects of the therapeutic relationship which determine the inappropriate or untimely use of psychotropic drugs, particularly on the therapist's response to the regressive modes of relating and sharing emotional experience which characterize therapeutic work with schizophrenic patients. Case examples illustrate the use of drugs to establish interpersonal boundaries, to disavow frightening feelings within the self, and to renounce forbidden regressive pleasures-thus defending against the regressive pull of the developing symbiotic relationship. The effect of postpsychotic depression on the therapeutic relationship is explored with regard to the dynamics of psychotropic drug usage in treatment.