Taking into account the most appropriate and analytical theories of recent neuroscientific findings, this book offers new perspectives on the nature and therapy for psychosis. The author identifies the main ways of developing psychosis; suggests, on a new light, the childhood precursors of the disease and highlights the problematic issues around which to play the healing process, explaining why the therapeutic work with these patients is complex and difficult.

Franco De Masi is a psychiatrist and member of the Italian Psychoanalytic Society. Among his publications, "The sadomasochistic perversion" (Bollati Boringhieri 1999) and "The limit of existence" (Bollati Boringhieri 2002).