Psychopathology

This work begins with a brief review – from the _physical education_ movement that began in ancient Greece and is deeply rooted in 19th century Europe, to the _somatics_ movement alive today. The review captures primary historical and conceptual references, relevant to the therapeutic-embodied exploratory work. Then, G. Stanghellini’s mental health care model [ 2 ] is reviewed. This model is considered within reflexive self-awareness and spoken dialogue: the main vehicles in relation with alterity and its consequences in the realm (...) of psychotherapeutic encounter and intervention. This will highlight the individual’s bodily movement and inter-corporeal ‘proto-dialogue’ as a prior realm of therapeutic intervention. Next, a brief consideration of E. Strauss work [ 31 ] is presented. This paper’s hypothesis is that bodily qualitative dynamics highlighted by phenomenology are essential for an effective mental health therapeutic intervention. A ‘seed’ of a framework is proposed in this paper; this seed assesses some phenomenological assets of a positive conception of mental health, for which self-awareness education is key to develop skills such as _kinaesthetic intelligence_ and _attunement_ and to educate healthy persons who can promote edifying social relations and environments. (shrink)

Group therapies possess a great number of benefits for trauma survivors, yet there exists a lack of clarity in the literature surrounding the application of trauma principles in group settings, or an awareness of the role of mindfulness-embodiment technologies for resourcing individuals prior to trauma processing. This article explores the value of structured-format auxiliary groups for trauma treatments that orient towards resourcing participants. We utilise the example of mindfulness and embodiment-based resourcing technologies, as illustrative of top-down and bottom-up approaches to (...) trauma resourcing. It is demonstrated that these technologies cultivate the ability to orient attention towards the present moment, increasing bodily and affective self-awareness, which serves to reduce patterns of reactivity, thereby supporting: symptom stabilisation; improved reflective and mentalising ability; and the cultivation of the self- and co-regulatory capacities necessary for trauma-processing group work. An overview of best-practice principles for establishing auxiliary resource groups is then provided, outlining: the phasic introduction of these resources in ‘group settings’ when and where they are applicable; the necessary screening requirements and exclusion criteria; the role and function of group norming and relational approaches; the importance of pendulation and titrations principles; and how to work with distinct populations and in-group heterogeneity. In this way this article elucidates the foundations for both developing an auxiliary resourcing group and for implementing such groups into a treatment plan for individuals living with trauma. (shrink)

This paper clarifies Merleau-Ponty’s original account of “higher-order” cognition as fundamentally embodied and enacted. Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy inspired theories that deemphasize overlaps between conceptual knowledge and motor intentionality or, on the contrary, focus exclusively on abstract thought. In contrast, this paper explores the link between Merleau-Ponty’s account of motor intentionality and his interpretations of our capacity to understand and interact productively with cultural symbolic systems. I develop my interpretation based on Merleau-Ponty’s analysis of two neuropathological modifications of motor intentionality, the case (...) of the brain-injured war veteran Schneider, and a neurological disorder known as Gerstmann’s syndrome. Building on my analysis of Schneider’s sensorimotor compensatory performances in relation to his limitations in the domains of algebra, geometry, and language usage, I demonstrate a strong continuity between the sense of embodiment and enaction at all these levels. Based on Merleau-Ponty’s interpretations, I argue that “higher-order” cognition is impaired in Schneider insofar as his injury limits his sensorimotor capacity to dynamically produce comparatively more complex differentiations of any given phenomenal structure. I then show how Merleau-Ponty develops and specifies his interpretation of Schneider’s intellectual difficulties in relation to the ambiguous role of the body, and in particular the hand, in Gerstmann’s syndrome. I explain how Merleau-Ponty defends the idea that sensorimotor and quasi-representational cognition are mutually irreducible, while maintaining that symbol-based cognition is a fundamentally enactive and embodied process. (shrink)

In contemporary philosophy of mind and psychiatry, schizophrenic thought insertion is often used as a validating or invalidating counterexample in various theories about how we experience ourselves. Recent work has taken cases of thought insertion to provide an invalidating counterexample to the Humean denial of self-experience, arguing that deficiencies of agency in thought insertion suggest that we normally experience ourselves as the agent of our thoughts. In this paper, I argue that appealing to a breakdown in the sense of agency (...) to explain thought insertion is problematic, and that rather than following the prevailing binary approach which holds that certain features of consciousness go missing while others remain wholly intact, a better explanation involves construing thought insertion as a disturbing or disrupting of the subjectivity (for-me-ness) of experience. The result is that experiencing ourselves as the subject of our thoughts is where future research should be directed, given the robust persistence of this form of self-experience across psychopathological and non-psychopathological cases alike. (shrink)

Delusions have traditionally been considered the hallmark of mental illness, and their conception, diagnosis and treatment raise many of the fundamental conceptual and practical questions of psychopathology. One of these fundamental questions is whether delusions are understandable. In this paper, we propose to consider the question of understandability of delusions from a philosophy of language perspective. For this purpose, we frame the question of how delusions can be understood as a question about the meaning of delusional utterances. Accordingly, we ask: (...) “what meaning(s) can delusional utterances possibly have?”. We argue that in the current literature, there is a standard approach to the meaning of delusional utterances, namely the descriptive account which assumes that a delusional utterance “p” means that p is the case. Drawing on Speech Act Theory, we argue that solely relying on the descriptive account disregards essential ways of how linguistic meaning is constituted. Further, we show that Speech Act Theory can prove a helpful addition to the theoretical and clinical “toolbox” used for attempting to understand delusional utterances. This, we believe, may address some of the theoretical and clinical shortcomings of using only the currently predominant descriptive account. (shrink)

It is a mistake to think that any philosophical contribution to the study of psychopathology is otiose. I identify three non-exhaustive roles that philosophy can and does occupy in the study of mental disorder, which I call the agenda-setting role, the synthetic role, and the regulative role. The three roles are illustrated via consideration of the importance of Jaspers’ notion of understanding and its application to specific examples of mental disorder, including delusions of reference, Capgras delusion and other monothematic delusions, (...) and clinical depression. Together the three roles assign to philosophy of psychopathology the task of determining how to situate the varieties of mental disorder within the system of interpretive and evaluative concepts that partially make up the dynamic but indispensable manifest image. (shrink)

In this paper, I draw on phenomenological analyses of religious voice-hearing and related experiences to elucidate the role of phenomenology in discerning benign from pathological religious experience. First, I present phenomenological discontinuities between cases of benign and pathological voice-hearing by drawing on a study of first-person accounts of voice-hearers within the Pentecostal movement which evinces that voice-hearing is not inherently pathological. Second, I introduce the epidemiological continuity of psychotic-like phenomena by drawing on a study of the contextual and responsive differences (...) between clinical and non-clinical voice-hearers which point to the contexts wherein voice-hearing does not lead to pathology. Third, I present a successful case where the meaning of the anomalous experiences is validated and normalized by drawing on studies of mediumistic experience which illuminate its therapeutic benefits. Finally, I argue that failing to take the voice-hearer’s lived experience into account in the diagnostic moment can result in the pathologization of benign experiences. (shrink)

This special issue presents a Portuguese translation of the EAWE: Examination of Anomalous World Experience (Sass et al., this issue; original publication Sass et al., 2017). The EAWE is a semi-structured, phenomenologically-oriented interview designed to elicit descriptions of changes in the lived world, particularly those that may be more commonly found in schizophrenia spectrum disorders (though it may also be used to study disorders outside the schizophrenia spectrum). The EAWE represents an important trend in psychiatric research and practice: a growing (...) appreciation for the role of subjectivity in understanding, explaining (Sass, 2010), classifying and treating psychiatric disorders, especially complex and heterogeneous disorders such as schizophrenia. The EAWE’s translation into Portuguese reflects several equally important developments. The ability to collect detailed information about the experience of schizophrenia and other psychiatric conditions among Portuguese-speaking participants will make it possible to study the phenomenological characteristics of schizophrenia outside of Anglophone cultures, providing important data about the intersections of individual, interpersonal, and cultural experiences in the development of the disorder. In addition, it occurs at a time of renewed energy and collaboration in phenomenological psychopathology, particularly in Brazil. (shrink)

The aim of this work is to present the triontic theory of the normal and pathological human psychism, elaborated by the Romanian psychiatrist Eduard Pamfil, and to highlight its deep connection with the Holy Trinity model of God. The main idea of the work is that mental illness, considered from a wider anthropo-phenomenological perspective, appears as the result of a deficit within interpersonal communication and, in a deeper way, of the lack of communion between human persons. According to Pamfil, the (...) conscious human being is the result of the interaction of its three poles: I (ipseity), You (tui-ty) and He (ille-ity). Pamfil emphasises the inter-ontic nature of the person, its unity and uniqueness. I (ipseity), stands for the “archaic-primitive condition of the person”. You (tui-ty) stands for the “alter ego function”, the structural pole of personality. He (ille-ity) is the “systemic, axiological pole”. Thus, personality is a “mobile crossroad” between I, You and He, which are “moments of phenomenological subjectivity”. The psychopathological commentary of mental illness is made for three major clinical entities: neurosis, psychosis, psychopathy. The above presented theory is closely related to the Orthodox view of human person, who has its spiritual and moral model in the Holy Trinty of God. The modification of the triontic structure of the human person will lead to important changes in the existence of each person (I, You, He) within the trinitary relational system, among which mental illness is certainly the most significant. (shrink)

This paper intends to examine, both from a psychopathological and a phenomenological perspective, the state of “being-at-the-world”, which is common in drug addicted people. Past abuse, as well as present abuse, are crucial in the modification of the psychiatric impact in the history of drug abuse. The former drug lifestyle characterized by the use of heroin led to a form of psychosis which is known with the symptomatological expression as basic psychosis. On the other hand, the contemporary poly-abuse of NPS (...) leads to what is called a synthetic psychosis: a very rich paraphrenic state with continuous hallucinations caused by a mental automatism syndrome and secondary delusions. From a phenomenological point of view, all addictions lead to the final collapse of the Dasein structure. Subsequent to having travelled down many different psychopathological pathways, many addicts remain without the spatial-temporal “here and now” dimension. This makes it impossible for them to stay in a space-with-others and to project themselves in time. The result of this time/space cleavage is emptiness. It is very difficult to treat this existential situation, which is characterized by patients frequently dropping out of conventional treatment, the loss of the being-at-the-world structure, boredom, emptiness, dread, anger, lack of meaning, loneliness, and isolation. In this paper Dasein Group-Analysis is proposed and discussed. Unlike Dasein-Analysis, this approach applies phenomenology beyond the classic pair of analyst and patient, to a group of people made up of doctors and patients, in which everyone is simply a human being at the world. If the psychopathological and therapeutical approaches prove to be ineffective, the frequent consequences are: the patient’s admission into a psychiatric hospital; his/her arrest for crimes related to antisocial behaviour; a worsening of their psychopathology and addiction; a diffusion of infective diseases commonly found in addicts; more frequent overdoses; aggressive behaviour; legal problems; an increase in the costs of public health system and, finally, even the suicide of the patient. (shrink)

This book uses rare pathologies to inform questions on topics such as consciousness and rationality. Rather than trying to answer these by inventing far-fetched scenario or 'thought experiments', it is better to utilize a rich but under-used clinical resource.

Le controversie nosologiche in psichiatria siano orientate da ragioni sia epistemiche che non epistemiche, da questioni di evidenza ma anche di etica e sociologia della scienza, data la presenza di vari programmi di ricerca, di metodologie e anche di agenti differenti che si focalizzano sul problema del disturbo mentale. I due casi qui brevemente considerati, quello della Disposofobia e quello del Disturbo di personalità narcisistica mostrano, assieme al ruolo dell’evidenza empirica, da un lato il peso delle ragioni etiche dei gruppi (...) di pazienti e di quelle culturali della società allargata, dall’altro le dinamiche del consenso tra esperti. Che i disturbi mentali siano o non siano generi naturali, la loro classificazione è un processo razionale complesso che comprende norme e deviazioni dalle norme di diverso tipo. (shrink)

Karl Jaspers was influential in the phenomenological psychopathology movement. Contemporary phenomenological scholarship provides fruitful propositions in psychopathology as well as renewed recognition of Jaspers’ pioneering works. This paper is an attempt to give a more general account on how Jaspers’ oeuvre stands in face of contemporary phenomenological scholarship, outlining the intersections between them. Both poles critic the reductionism of consciousness, affirm the necessary relationship with the sciences and philosophy as well as the training and effort that the field demands. Disagreements (...) are related to Jaspersian’ restricted use of phenomenology. We claim that Jaspers provides an interesting model of applying phenomenology in psychopathology that is scientifically robust without losing the due primacy of experience in both conceptual and clinical developments. We recognize Jaspers` limitations on the development of phenomenology, nevertheless we consider that one should go with Jaspers in his rigorous descriptions, scientific endeavors, philosophical groundings, and also beyond him, emphasizing the structures of consciousness in its embodied, temporal and intersubjective features. (shrink)

This paper returns to a seminal case in the historical of phenomenological psychopathology, Ludwig Binswanger’s discussion of “Ellen West A woman with a long history of melancholia and disordered eating, Ellen West was treated at Binswanger’s Bellevue sanatorium in 1921, a two-and-a-half month-long stay that resulted in a diagnosis of schizophrenia and Ellen West’s suicide. Binswanger relied on West’s personal writings and clinical history to develop and apply an original approach to case analysis, Daseinsanalyse or “existential analysis.” This paper takes (...) up this case and Binswanger’s analysis to explore the origins of contemporary phenomenological psychopathology, the recent progress in this field, and areas for continued growth. The paper argues that new approaches to exploring the embedded or situated quality of psychopathology are needed for advancing clinical phenomenology, and that feminist and critical phenomenology are among the disciplines that can provide important methodological and theoretical foundations for this work. Without this, the field risks repeating Binswanger’s original mistakes and viewing psychiatric illness solely as the expression of a disturbed individual. (shrink)

Therapist’s and client’s experience in the session are emerging from the field forc-es in play; these forces are the intrinsic tensions of the emerging field. We propose an understanding of the therapeutic process as a field phenomenon: the process of change is made by the forces already active in the field and the therapist has just to let them move on without interfering, or sometimes to support them. Psy-chopathology is then the emerging absence, and therapy becomes the art of presence.

This paper is about Kant’s late unfinished manuscript, Opus postumum (1796–1803) and some of the resonances it has with Schelling’s early Naturphiloso­phie (1797–1800). Most of the secondary literature on Opus postumum investigates its relation to the rest of Kant’s corpus, often framing the drafts as an attempt to fill a so-called “gap” in the Critical philosophy whilst ignoring the relationship it has to the wider landscape of late eighteenth century German philosophy. Whether Opus postumum may provide grounds for reviewing the (...) relationship between Kant and Schelling’s Naturphilosophie, for example, is rarely discussed. Some scholars have remarked upon the striking parallels between Opus postumum and Naturphilosophie, but there has yet to appear a single monograph-length text on the relation. Whilst certainly “Schelling’s Post-Kantian confrontation with nature itself begins with the overthrow of the Copernican revolution” (Grant 2008, 6), what if Kant was himself overthrowing the Copernican revolution? In this paper, I will outline some of the points of contact to start from in support of posing this question. (shrink)

In his earlier work on the System of Transcendental Idealism, which combined Naturphilosophie and transcendental philosophy, Schelling argued that it is only by becoming-art that philosophy can complete itself as a discipline. He proposed this formulation in response to Kant’s critical inventory of reason offering to reclaim philosophy from its entanglement in pre-critical or dogmatic traditions. But Kant avoided to ground reason in the notion of externality, the in-itself, which, owing to its pre-critical derivation, must give way to the a (...) prioris and categories of the understanding. Meanwhile, by renewing the problem of the in-itself via the self-positing ego, Fichte was the first to challenge the Kantian legacy. But the emphasis on subjectivity through its power of self-positing gave way to what in principle negates nature as the true ground of the initself; in Schelling’s description, the equivalent of the annihilation of nature. Comparatively, Schelling proposed to demonstrate the reverse, which is the extinction of the subject that has continued to nourish the reflexive standpoint of reason. To accomplish this end, Schelling invoked in his Philosophy of Art, one of the places in which he extended his discussion of the so-called identity-system, the concept of the ideal type, or rather, the destroyer of known world established by critical reason. (shrink)

This article focuses on analysis of a handwritten fragment by F. W. J. Schelling “Psychological scheme”, which is a study of main principles of philosophical anthropology. The article reconstructs the circumstances of creating the mentioned text, which are connected with the trusting relationship between Schelling and Bavarian Crown Prince Maximilian; it also highlights the parallels between the text and the earlier Schelling's works exploring philosophical-anthropological problematic: “Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom” and “Stuttgart Seminars”. In the course of (...) terminological analysis of the fragment author displays that the the main source of influence was the work by I. Kant “Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone”. Major problem, considered by Schelling's anthropology, is defining the correlation between intelligible and empirical human character, the main resolving instrument being Schelling’s doctrine of potencies as ontological modalities developed in 1820-1830. (shrink)

The gives the detailed analysis of the ratio of freedom and imagination in an unpublished manuscript written by F.V.Y. Schelling, which contains the materials for the lecture course read at Erlangen University in 1820-1821. The author focuses on the question of imagination as a condition for the possibility to unfold the modal differences that provide the hierarchy of predicative definitions. The article shows that both the draft philosophy of mythology and the philosophy of revelation are a direct continuation of the (...) transcendentalist program given by Kant.Those projects bases on the thesis that the consciousness of freedom and consciousness of the law, justified in the “Critique of Practical Reason”, are related one another. Schelling following Kant’s theory, points to the law and to the unconditional imperative of freedom as the main principle which is not only theoretical or practical, but determines the separation of ontological and deontological modalities. At the same time, the formal structure of an imperative as a command has the specific character of “hiden opening”: what is themed in an imperative is not opened as a meaningful opportunity, it is only opened as theopportunity in its difference from necessity. I show in this article that interpreting the Schelling possibility relies on the teachings of I. Kant in his transcendental idealconception, connected with Kant's interpretation of the imagination’s productive ability. In the middle of Schelling’s theological interpretation of Kant's consciousness of lawdoctrine as the “fact of mind” lies the analogy between peacemaking and the ancestral sin of the first people. This concept is the main source of the theory of potency as ontological modalities, developed by Schelling in the 1830s - 1840s in lectures on the philosophy of mythology and the philosophy of revelation. (shrink)

Introduction: The experience of disconnection is common in first-person accounts of grief. One way in which this feeling of estrangement can manifest is through the splintering apart of the time of the mourner and the time of the world. Supplementing and extending Thomas Fuchs' influential idea of temporal desynchronization, my aim in this article is to give an account of the heterogeneous ways in which grief can disturb time. -/- Method: I organize these manifold experiences of temporal disruption according to (...) a method of "depth analysis": a phenomenological interpretation of temporal desynchronization that tracks the increasing disconnect between the mourner and the world as it manifests in time. In so doing, I draw on a wide range of descriptive first-person responses to the question "Has your experience of time changed in any way?" - included as part of an online questionnaire on the emotional experience of grief conducted recently with colleagues at the University of York. I then stratify these according to a mild, moderate, and profound level of disruption. -/- Results: Before setting out the results of this analysis, I give a background account of Fuchs' interpretation of temporal desynchronization in phenomenological psychopathology more generally and in grief specifically. In my results, I then supplement and extend his interpretation by setting out my phenomenological depth analysis of the increasing disconnect between the time of the mourner and the time of the world, as demonstrated by the questionnaire data. As I argue, such a fine-grained account is an important step in understanding the way time can shape the meaning and significance of different grief experiences. Following this, in my discussion, I demonstrate how a depth approach might be helpful in differentiating between temporal disturbances in a range of affective disorders and give an illustrative comparison of grief and depression. -/- Conclusion: In conclusion, I reflect briefly on what grief might reveal about the depth and complexity of temporal experience itself. In so doing, I consider how the radical disruptions to time in grief might transform the mourner's experience of time irreversibly but in a way that enables a renewed connection to both their deceased loved one and the world from which they have become estranged. (shrink)

Over the course of 40 years of state socialism, the explanation that Czechoslovak criminologists gave for spousal murder changed significantly. Initially attributing offences to the perpetrator's class origins, remnants of his bourgeois way of life, and the lack of positive influence from the collective in the long 1950s, criminologists then refocused their attention solely on the individual's psychopathology during the period known as ‘Normalization’, which encompassed the last two decades of state socialism. Based on an analysis of archival sources, including (...) scholarly journals and expert reports, and following Ian Hacking's insight that ‘kinds of people come into being’ through the realignment of systems of knowledge, this article shows how new kinds of spousal murderer emerged as a result of shifting criminological expertise. We explain the change as the result of the psychiatrization of criminology that occurred in Czechoslovakia at a time when the regime needed to consolidate after the upheavals of the Prague Spring of 1968. The criminological framing of spousal murder as belonging squarely in the individualized realm of the private sphere reflected the contemporaneous effort of the regime to enclose the private as a sphere of relative state non-interference. (shrink)

In the 1950s, long before his ascent to international renown, Michel Foucault published a scant few works. His early writings on psychology, psychopathology, and anthropology have been dismissed as immature. However, recently discovered manuscripts from the mid-1950s, when Foucault was a lecturer at the University of Lille, testify to the significance of the work that the philosopher produced in the years leading up to the “archaeological” project he launched with History of Madness. Elisabetta Basso offers a groundbreaking and in-depth analysis (...) of Foucault’s Lille manuscripts that sheds new light on the origins of his philosophical project. She considers the epistemological style and methodology of these writings as well as their philosophical context and the scholarly networks in which Foucault was active, foregrounding his relationship to existential psychiatry. Young Foucault blurs the boundaries between biography and theory, exploring the transformations—and, at times, contradictions—that characterize the intellectual trajectory of a philosopher who, as Foucault himself put it, “turned to psychology, and from psychology to history.” Retracing the first steps of the philosopher’s intellectual journey, Basso shows how Foucault’s early writings provide key insights into his archaeological work of the 1960s. Assembling a vast array of archival sources—including manuscripts, reading notes, notes for lectures and conferences, and correspondence—this book develops a new and deeper understanding of Foucault’s body of work. (shrink)

Whether, and in what sense, research in phenomenology and phenomenological psychopathology has—in addition to its descriptive and hermeneutic value—explanatory power is somewhat controversial. This paper shows why it is legitimate to recognize such explanatory power. To this end, the paper analyzes two central concerns underlying the debate about explanation in phenomenology: the warning against reductionism, which is implicit in a conception of causal explanation exclusively based on models of natural/physical causation; and the warning against top-down generalizations, which neglect the specificity (...) of the individual. While acknowledging that these two caveats express serious concerns regarding the debate on explanatory models, I show that phenomenology has the resources to respond to them. These can be found in analyses of different types of causation relating to different regions of reality and in the structure of explanatory models based on exemplarity. On the basis of these analyses, I defend a pluralist account vis-à-vis explanatory models. (shrink)

This paper deals with a classical issue that remains at the core of the contemporary philosophical debate: the fact that the meaning of life is interlaced—in both negative and positive ways, with respect to morality—with happiness. On some historical conceptions, individual happiness must be sacrificed for the moral (universal, objective) good of a life, where the good fundamentally coincides with the meaning of life. On other approaches, happiness and flourishing (where flourishing is understood in terms of life’s meaningfulness) consist in (...) good action and a good life. On still other views, happiness, while equated with the meaning of life, is reduced to mere pleasure, to a sensorial state that can be influenced by outside forces. In the current literature, the prevailing interpretations of this question are largely deontological, eudaimonic or hedonic in character. Moving from the Schelerian theory of the stratification of the emotional life, and emphasizing the affective side of this broadly ethical question, this paper intends to examine this issue through the lens of phenomenology. From this perspective, the connection between happiness and the meaning not only of life but also of existence can be understood in light of what appears to underlie both phenomena: the entire existence of the individual, which is revealed most clearly in an act of personal love. Since this paper considers the condition humaine in all its complexity, that is to say, even in its fragility and vulnerability, within this framework I will also consider possible abnormal manifestations of happiness. Following Rümke’s clinical observations of pathological frameworks in which the feeling of happiness manifests itself, this paper shows how the deepest feeling of happiness, understood as a Schelerian personality feeling, can remain untouched by pathology. In his classic (but largely unappreciated) enquiry into the happiness syndrome, Rümke engages in a fruitful dialogue with Scheler, whose theory of the stratification of emotional life plays a crucial role in the former’s study of the phenomenology and the clinical aspects of happiness. Not only is Rümke’s Zur Phänomenologie und Klinik des Glücksgefühls an excellent example of applied phenomenology, but it also confirms the results of Scheler’s research on affective life. (shrink)

By manifesting dysfunctions of fundamental psychological mechanisms such as emotions, reasoning, and language, symptoms of mental disorders can inform us on their nature and functions. In this volume, Valentina Cardella and Amelia Gangemi bring together a collection of articles which draw from psychopathology in order to further our study of the human mind. Contributors include philosophers of mind and language, clinical psychologists, and a historian, all applying their respective methodological tools with the aim of learning from mental disorders about the (...) fragile equilibrium that supports our mental capacities. (shrink)

Max Scheler’s Formalism – and other of his essays on the philosophy of psychology, such as The Idols of Self-Knowledge and Ressentiment – continues to be in dialogue with contemporary philosophers of mind, psychiatrists and neuroscientists. Moving essentially from Formalism and essays from the same period, this paper provides an outline of a genuine Schelerian philosophy of psychopathology, investigating the close connection between “identity” and “freedom”. Not only did Scheler contribute to phenomenological psychology, but he also took an original approach (...) to psychopathology. From this point of view, it is possible to shed further light on his fruitful cooperation with Kurt Schneider and to understand so-called ‘emotional blindness’ from a new perspective. Within this framework, what emerges is the crucial role, in the formation of certain affective disorders, of the modification of pulsions and tendencies. Insofar as it allows for the development of a Schelerian model of delusion and (self)-deception, this approach also has implications for the debate on delusion in the context of contemporary philosophy of psychiatry. (shrink)

This book explores how the human mind works through the lens of psychological disorders, challenging many existing theoretical constructs, especially in the fields of psychology, psychiatry and philosophy of mind. Drawing on the expertise of leading academics, the book discusses how psychopathology can be used to inform our understanding of the human mind. The book argues that studying mental disorders can deepen the understanding of psychological mechanisms such as reasoning, emotions, and beliefs alongside fundamental philosophical questions, including the nature of (...) the self, the universal aspects of morality, and the role of rationality and normativity in human nature. By crossing different domains, this book offers a fresh perspective on the human mind based on the dialogue between philosophy, cognitive science and clinical psychology. Mental disorders discussed include schizophrenia, anxiety disorders, major depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and paranoia. This book caters to the increasing interest in interdisciplinary approach to solving some of the problems in psychopathology. Since this book treats psychological engagement with empirically informed philosophy of mind, this book is essential reading for students and researchers of cognitive psychology, clinical psychology, and philosophy, as well as being of interest to clinicians and psychiatrists. (shrink)

This book is based on a congress evaluating Jaspers' basic psychopathological concepts and their anthropological roots in light of modern research paradigms. It provides a definition of delusion, his concept of "limit situation" so much challenged by trauma research, and his methodological debate. We are approaching the anniversary of Jaspers seminal work General Psychopathology in 1913. The Centre of Psychosocial Medicine of the University with its Psychiatric Hospital where Jaspers wrote this influential volume as a 29 year old clinical assistant (...) hosted a number of international experts familiar with his psychiatric and philosophical work. This fruitful interdisciplinary discussion seems particularly important in light of the renewed interest in Jaspers’ work, which will presumably increase towards the anniversary year 2013. This volume is unique in bringing together the knowledge of leading international scholars and combining three dimensions of investigation that are necessary to understand Jaspers in light of contemporary questions: history, methodology and application. (shrink)

Over the last decades, childhood maltreatment has emerged as a major risk factor for the development and maintenance of transdiagnostic psychopathology. Notably, higher prevalence rates of maltreatment have been found for nearly all mental disorders, with particularly high numbers for post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, borderline personality disorder and anxiety disorders. Furthermore, childhood maltreatment has been associated with an earlier onset of mental disorders, a more severe and chronic course of disease as well as reduced rates of psychological treatment benefit. However, (...) the pathways that underlie this relationship are still unknown. It has been shown that various factors, for example biological alterations, play a role in the relationship between childhood maltreatment and mental disorders. Research investigating the influence of psychological factors, such as emotional reactivity and emotional regulation, attachment or post-traumatic stress symptoms is rare. These investigations are highly relevant in order to identify potential targets for psychological interventions. First approaches in this line of research examine specific transdiagnostic treatments for early traumatization, such as Imagery Rescripting. However, as childhood maltreatment is suspected to be associated with a broad array of mental disorders, it might not be explained by a single underlying mechanism. Instead, multiple pathways are probable to mediate the relationship between childhood maltreatment and transdiagnostic psychopathology. Therefore, the major aim of this thesis is to make a first step in filling this research gap by investigating the underlying psychological mechanisms between childhood maltreatment and psychopathology in clinical studies. Studies I and II were conducted with a clinical sample of patients with obsessive compulsive disorder. Preliminary research, though limited by small sample sizes and inconsistent findings, showed that childhood maltreatment might play a role in OCD. In order to replicate and expand on these findings we aimed to examine the association of childhood maltreatment and OCD more closely. Study I primarily examined the subtypes of childhood maltreatment influencing OCD and additionally the impact of childhood maltreatment on the success of psychological OCD treatment. We found three main results: First, increased prevalence rates of childhood maltreatment among our OCD patient sample in comparison to a general German population sample. Second, childhood maltreatment severity was related to greater OCD symptom severity, with the most robust relationship for the maltreatment subtype of emotional abuse. Third, individuals with higher levels of childhood maltreatment reported greater OCD symptoms at pre-treatment, post-treatment, and 6 months after their inpatient stay, compared to patients without maltreatment experiences. However, in contradiction of our hypothesis, childhood maltreatment did not influenced treatment benefit. Based on the findings, study II aimed to examine the underlying mechanisms of the detected association between childhood maltreatment and OCD symptoms. Potential mediating factors were chosen based on the following criteria: evidence for association with childhood maltreatment, evidence for association with OCD, and existing plausible theoretical explanation for this mediator as an underlying mechanism. Therefore, we predicted that, emotion regulation difficulties, rumination, an insecure attachment style, dissociation, and post-traumatic stress symptoms are potential mediators between the association of childhood maltreatment and OCD symptom severity. In line with our hypotheses, these factors all mediated the relationship between childhood maltreatment and OCD symptom severity. However, regarding insecure attachment styles, the subtype of avoidant attachment was not linked to either childhood maltreatment or OCD symptom severity, suggesting that in OCD an anxious attachment is more prominent. Study III investigated the specific role of emotional reactivity as an underlying mechanism between childhood maltreatment and major depression in a clinical sample of patients with major depression. Whereas in the literature for major depression the findings regarding heightened emotional reactivity are inconsistent, childhood maltreatment was widely associated with increased emotional reactivity. We therefore hypothesized that the severity of childhood maltreatment is related to higher emotional reactivity among depressive patients. Hence, self-reported and physiological emotional reactivity was measured while presenting audio recordings with neutral, negative and individualized childhood trauma-related scripts. In line with our hypothesis, depressive patients with higher levels of childhood maltreatment reported heightened emotional reactivity to the childhood trauma-related script and the negative script compared to the neutral script. In particular, they rated the negative script as more aversive and distressing. Additionally, they showed more re-experiencing and dissociation experiences in response to the negative script. Equally, the trauma-related script was perceived as more aversive and distressing. Furthermore, it resulted in greater levels of arousal and showed more avoidance as an emotional regulation strategy. In contrast to our hypothesis, no effect of childhood maltreatment on physiological responsiveness emerged. Overall, there is a growing body of literature showing that childhood maltreatment is a transdiagnostic risk factor for various mental disorders. However, few researchers have addressed the question of how this early vulnerability to psychopathology develops and persists. This thesis aimed to expand on current knowledge of the underlying pathways of the relationship between childhood maltreatment and psychopathology in two different mental disorders. The study findings presented in this thesis provide first evidence that heightened emotional reactivity and difficulties in emotion regulation, together with rumination might play a role. Moreover, post-traumatic stress symptoms, even those deemed subclinical, such as hyperarousal, avoidance and dissociative symptoms might be mediating factors between childhood maltreatment and transdiagnostic psychopathology. Since we found indications that re-experience might also play a role in mediating this relationship, future work will concentrate on exploring this factor in more detail. Additionally, further work is needed to investigate the cause of high divergence between self-report emotional reactivity and psychophysiological reactivity. From a methodological perspective, problems in assessing childhood maltreatment retrospectively with the childhood trauma questionnaire will be discussed. Moreover, implications for a theoretical transdiagnostic model and methodological approaches, as well as directions for future research on the underlying pathways of childhood maltreatment and psychopathology are outlined. (shrink)

Introduction to The Oxford Handbook of Phenomenological Psychopathology.

In this chapter, I introduce phenomenology and phenomenological psychopathology by clarifying the kind of implicit experiences that phenomenologists are concerned with. In section one, I introduce the phenomenological concept of pre-reflective experience, focusing especially on its relation to the concept of implicit experience. In section two, I introduce the structure of pre-reflective self-consciousness, which has been studied extensively by both classical phenomenologists and contemporary phenomenological psychopathologists. In section three, I show how phenomenological psychopathologists rely on an account of pre-reflective self-consciousness (...) to better understand the experience of schizophrenia and I outline some of the methodological challenges that arise in this field of research. This introduction should facilitate critical engagement and collaboration between phenomenologists and researchers working across a variety of disciplines, including psychology, psychiatry, the cognitive sciences, and analytic philosophy of mind. (shrink)

Naturalistic accounts of mental disorder aim to identify an objective basis for attributions of mental disorder. This goal is important for demarcating genuine mental disorders from artificial or socially constructed disorders. The articulation of a demarcation criterion provides a means for assuring that attributions of 'mental disorder' are not merely pathologizing different forms of social deviance. The most influential naturalistic and hybrid definitions of mental disorder identify biological dysfunction as the objective basis of mental disorders: genuine mental...

Research in psychopathology is booming in an unprecedented way, at least, in terms of increasing number of publications. Yet, a few questions arise: Does quantity also give us quality? Are the collected data generally of sound quality? How are data typically collected in psychopathology? Are the applied methods of data collection appropriate for this particular field of study? This article explores three different methods of data collection in psychopathology, namely self-rating scales, structured interviews, and semi-structured, phenomenological interviews. To identify the (...) most adequate methodological approach, we first establish the nature of the object of psychopathology and then we critically assess each method’s appropriateness to this field of study. We emphasize fundamental issues that make self-rating scales and structured interviews unfit for the task of adequately examining psychopathology. By contrast, we propose that a semi-structured, phenomenological interview presents a more appropriate method. Finally, we describe two types of semi-structured, phenomenological interviews that can be applied to assess and explore psychopathology, respectively. (shrink)

Research in psychopathology is booming in an unprecedented way, at least, in terms of increasing number of publications. Yet, a few questions arise: Does quantity also give us quality? Are the collected data generally of sound quality? How are data typically collected in psychopathology? Are the applied methods of data collection appropriate for this particular field of study? This article explores three different methods of data collection in psychopathology, namely self-rating scales, structured interviews, and semi-structured, phenomenological interviews. To identify the (...) most adequate methodological approach, we first establish the nature of the object of psychopathology and then we critically assess each method’s appropriateness to this field of study. We emphasize fundamental issues that make self-rating scales and structured interviews unfit for the task of adequately examining psychopathology. By contrast, we propose that a semi-structured, phenomenological interview presents a more appropriate method. Finally, we describe two types of semi-structured, phenomenological interviews that can be applied to assess and explore psychopathology, respectively. (shrink)

When interacting with other people, we assume that they have their reasons for what they do and believe, and experience recognizable feelings and emotions. When people act from weakness of will or are otherwise irrational, what they do can still be comprehensible to us, since we know what it is like to fall for temptation and act against one’s better judgment. Still, when someone’s experiences, feelings and way of thinking is vastly different from our own, understanding them becomes increasingly difficult. (...) Delusions and psychosis are often seen as marking the end of intelligibility. In this paper, I argue first for the importance of seeing other people as intelligible as long as this is at all possible. Second, I argue, based on both previous literature and my own lived experience, that more psychotic phenomena than previously thought can be rendered at least somewhat intelligible. Besides bizarre experiences like illusions, hallucinations and intense feelings of significance, I also explain what it is like to lose one’s bedrock, and how this loss impacts which beliefs one has reason to reject. Finally, I give an inside account of some disturbances of reason, and show that there are important similarities between certain psychotic reasoning problems and common non-pathological phenomena. (shrink)