On Psychiatry

I would rather use a hypothetical example than theories to suggest what I actually mean. You see, it is possible, for example, that in any community, be it a family or any other community, two people live side by side. One of them has the misfortune after some time to have an attack, and so he is transferred to a psychiatric institution. Now, of course, one can treat this person in isolation. But if one does so, especially if one forms one's view from the isolated observation of this person, then in many cases one will actually only fall prey to a thought-mask. For the case may well be, and in numerous cases is, that another person, who lives with the person who has become ill, or who has become mentally ill, let us say in a family or in some other community, actually has within himself, let us say, a complex of forces that has led to mental illness in his fellow human being. So, we start with these two people: one person, A, has the attack, from a psychiatric point of view; person B has a complex of forces within them, of a psychically organic nature, which perhaps, if you were to look at it in isolation, shows what is called the cause of the illness in individual A to a much greater extent. That is to say, B, who is not mentally ill at all, actually has this cause of mental illness within him to a much greater extent than A, who had to be taken to a sanatorium.