In a previous post I quoted Reich on the openness of people with schizophrenia. Schizoid may be misleading but that's the word Reich used. In a group I led in the past I was surprised about how casual conversations about astral traveling could occur in the group when no one seemed to be in an open psychotic state of mind. One member even talked about how he used to detach from his body to guard it during sleep for years, while another talked about going to China.
Here the auto-erotic stage and dialectical unity of mind and body seem to be very important. The body-ego can be left when it is threatened while at the subsequent volar stage there is the threat of someone getting under your skin and having one's mind taken over.
Since establishing psychic bisexuality and the poles of egoism/power and altruism/belonging I've been most impressed with my conversations with people who have schizophrenia. With an altruist, they can openly say things like they don't feel like they belong to a family, that they don't feel like they belong anywhere and not even in their own bodies. Fear of getting too close to others and then losing them or being rejected by them are all out in the open.
With the altruistic schizophrenic the lack of aggression and self-assertion is staggering, or, conversely, an altruist who has been pushed around and hurt too much will be bristling with aggressive energy and will inspire fear in other altruists.
However, it is humorous to see that the non-psychotic schizophrenic will still tell you that his or her childhood was good when you begin to take a history with them. Although they much more quickly reveal the stories of parents fighting, neglecting, threatening, losing it, and trying to keep their sanity together, they still don't want to be ungrateful (as altruists).
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