This book postulates that the trigger of the psychotic condition is located in the basic processes which structure the first emotional relations. It presents some of the reasons why patients succumb to the attraction of a course doomed to result in the permanent derangement of their minds.

Franco De Masi is well known for his psychoanalytic work with patients suffering psychotic illnesses. In this book, he provides the clinician with important perspectives on the origins and development of delusions in psychosis and on the radical differences between delusional and normal or neurotic thought, and how these differences come about.