This work has been hailed by reviewers as a “work of great importance”, a “monumental work that will have profound and lingering influence on all students concerned with an understanding of schizophrenia” and “the most comprehensive presentation of the subject since that of Bleuler in 1911.” Some of the outstanding sections are: the psychodynamic mechanisms of childhood and adolescence, the structural analysis of schizophrenic thought and language, and the development of the catatonic process. (1373 pp.)

Reviews:

“I am overwhelmed with the completeness of this volume of Arieti’s. I suppose there is no one who knows more about this subject than does he. If there is someone, I don’t know him. This major work of Arieti’s, thirty-three years in the making, gives enlightened evidence of our vastly increased knowledge of schizophrenia. It breathes a sense of optimism and states that present-day understanding is sufficient to permit a totally successful treatment of many patients and a marked amelioration of others. This is the work of a master craftsman. It is a ‘must.'”
—Frances J Braceland M.D., Editor American Journal of Psychiatry

“A monumental and definitive study of what is known and conjectured about schizophrenia—remarkable both for its scientific content and profound humanism. No one who reads Dr. Arieti’s book will go away unmoved. The human mind is a strange and mysterious continent and Dr. Arieti has illuminated some of its darkest parts.”
—1975 National Book Award for Science

“I find the book exceedingly valuable. It is characterized by astute clinical observation and rich experience in devoted work. It is highly informative, stimulating, and useful in clinical practice. It also points the way toward future studies and ways to deepen our understanding of schizophrenia in the future. All of us who care about the welfare of schizophrenic patients are in Arieti’s debt.
—David Hamburg M.D., Reed-Hodgson Professor of Human Biology
Department of Psychiatry, Stanford University

“Every serious student of the schizophrenic processes will wish to read Dr. Silvano Arieti’s Interpretation of Schizophrenia. It brings forward Dr. Arieti’s own accumulated experiences in working with the schizophrenic over the past years, his recording of new knowledge derived from the work of others, its weighing and assessment against those hypotheses formulated by himself. The author’s knowledge of the schizophrenic shines through. He is one of the few to concern himself with the formal aspects of schizophrenic though. In this edition he discusses teleologic regression, pathological though, and, as he sees it, the transference of ordinarily held abstract ideation into concrete representations. His chapter on the now rare catatonics is outstanding, presenting as it does … extraordinarily interesting case reports. For those most concerned with treatment, his discussions and recommendations as to psychotherapy will be found refreshing. There is little left out in this monumental work.
—Lawrence Kolb M.D. Director, Department of Mental Hygiene
New York State Psychiatric Institution