Abstract
The aim of the paper is to - from the viewpoint of psychiatric anthropology - present the work of Czech psychotherapist and philosopher Eva Syřišťová who was mostly active as a therapist in psychiatric hospital while also publishing some avant-garde works in the field of psychotherapy of psychosis and specifically schizophrenia. Syřišťová began working with schizophrenic patients in the 1950's and wrote her most notable works in the early 1970's.
In the paper, I introduce the core principles of her approach to therapy of schizophrenia, namely accepting and understanding the content of what the patient/client perceives or feels, and understanding psychosis in the wider, social - or simply interpersonal - context as a reaction to certain events and relationship constellations in the life of the patient/client which Syřišťová generally describes as 'unbearable situations'. For Syřišťová, psychotic sensations are comparable to dreams and deserve the same attention.
Syřišťová, however, was opposed to traditional psychoanalysis as she rejected the idea of hidden structure, be it sexual or mythical, behind the content of psychotic sensations (or dreams). While Syřišťová herself never questioned the very categories of mental illness, schizophrenia or psychosis and also wasn't opposed to usage of medication, her approach based on sincere dialogue with the individual while focusing on their suffering (which Syřišťová understood as the cause of the schizophrenia and not the schizophrenia itself) can be rightly seen as challenging not only in Czechoslovakia and Eastern Europe of her time but can be inspirative even for contemporary psychotherapy.