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In the context of epistemological revisions in the psychiatric practice of our time, it seems worthwhile to support the diversity of psychiatric exercises. From a case arising from our practice as psychologists working with adult subjects suffering from child psychoses and hospitalized in psychiatric institutions, we try to answer these questions: how can the schizophrenic subject be helped when he has found no compass with which to orientate his world (in terms of his relationship with his own body, with others and with objects)? What’s wrong with the subject, said to be “schizophrenic,” when talking or even moving around in the world appear to be dangerous? How then does the subject bear a world woven by the symbolic, and even moreso an institution that makes use of everyday language? Subsequently, from our research work on the current treatment of schizophrenia, we attempt to identify the theoretical interest of the use of “pretenses” by the subject and his partners, as a space of invention.