Psychotherapy and schizophrenia: an analysis of requirements of individual psychotherapy with persons who experience manifestly barren or empty selves.

Emerging views of schizophrenia emphasize that part of recovery involves persons reclaiming a sense of their own identity, agency and personal worth. While this intuitively seems a matter where psychotherapy might be uniquely useful, it raises the issue of how this should be facilitated particularly among persons who experience themselves as unable to engage in dialogue with others. In this article, we explore how integrative psychotherapy might address issues of self-narrative and recovery from schizophrenia among persons experiencing, in particular profound levels of emptiness or barrenness. Illustrated with two case examples, we explore barriers posed to psychotherapy by clients' minimalist self-presentations and describe three stages for integrative interventions that can revitalize dialogues within the client and between the client and others, ultimately enabling the reconstruction of a client's personal narrative within which a life plan might be articulated, guiding future action.