DescriptionWorking with a person who suffers with a psychotic disorder in individual psychotherapy can be challenging, frustrating, ineffective, and emotionally draining for both the client and clinician. But, it may also be an extremely rewarding therapeutic relationship and process, which promotes positive and permanent insight and change. This case study of a therapeutic relationship with a young woman suffering from schizophrenia is a combination of my 30 years of work as a psychiatric social worker in the field of mental illness, and the many men and women who courageously sought help for a wide spectrum of psychiatric disorders. It shows how an empathetic treatment approach created a safe environment for the client’s self-exploration and fostered her ability to make changes and heal from some of schizophrenia’s debilitating symptoms. A humanistic and empathetic approach allowed me to maintain a self-reflexive and intersubjective position, a position that is often dismissed by strict evidence-based strategies.