Understanding the incomprehensible: private theories of first-episode psychotic patients and their therapists.

Private theories about psychosis, its background, and cure were studied using narratives of first-time psychotic patients and their therapists. Both patients and their therapists were interviewed on three occasions over a period of 1 1/2 years. Three cases were chosen as dyads in point in order to highlight different relations between the patient's and the therapist's private theories, different patterns of recovery from psychosis, and different outcomes. The cases are contrasted by paired comparisons. The study indicates that an awareness and joint discussion of incompatibilities between the two participants' private theories might be a substantial contribution to the process of recovery from psychosis.