Diagnostic and treatment interactions between the physician and the patient have role-inducing "side effects." Our present approach to the acutely psychotic adult may assign a "mental illness" role which further injures the person's potential for growth and adaptation. An alternative approach to the diagnosis and treatment of acute schizophrenia is described in a case history. The focus avoids invidious labels resulting from categorizing and suppressing an "illness process"; instead, the diagnostic and treatment interactions define the psychotic experience as offering possibilities for growth which were previously unavailable in the prepsychotic state.