Schizophr Bull
February 1, 2019
Elizabeth Pienkos, Anne Giersch, Marie Hansen et al.
93 citations
Hallucinations are often studied as isolated symptoms, but this review argues that they emerge from a broader set of changes in cognition, perception, selfhood, time, interpersonal experience, and embodiment. The authors suggest that grouping different hallucinatory experiences under a single definition may obscure meaningful differences in their causes and subjective qualities. They review phenomenological and neurocognitive theories and the role of trauma, proposing that hallucinations are an equifinal outcome of multiple genetic, neurocognitive, subjective, and social processes. Future research should incorporate a wider range of experiential alterations, and clinical practice should use phenomenologically responsive techniques and develop targeted therapies.
Frontiers in Psychiatry
January 1, 2021
Andreas Rosén Rasmussen, Andrea Raballo, Antonio Preti et al.
21 citations
Anomalies of imagination—disturbances in the basic structure of fantasies and imagery—are highly characteristic of schizophrenia-spectrum disorders and closely related to self-disorders. In a study of 81 participants, including patients with schizophrenia or other non-affective psychosis, schizotypal personality disorder, other mental illness, and healthy controls, these anomalies aggregated significantly in the schizophrenia-spectrum group compared to other mental illness and healthy controls, with no difference between schizophrenia and schizotypal disorder. Network analysis showed anomalies of imagination were closely interconnected with self-disorders, while correlations with perceptual disturbances and positive, negative, and general symptoms were moderate but separated in the network.
Schizophrenia Research
October 1, 2024
Michele Poletti, Andrea Raballo
10 citations
A two-stage phenomenological-developmental model explains how early deficits in multisensory integration disrupt the formation of the Minimal Self in the first years of life, creating a schizotaxic vulnerability that later manifests as basic self-disorders and subjective anomalies characteristic of schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Self-disorders capture the experiential aspects of vulnerability to these disorders, emerge before major diagnostic symptoms, and are detectable in populations with familial risk.
Schizophrenia Bulletin
May 25, 2025
Andrea Raballo, Mads Gram Henriksen, Michele Poletti et al.
9 citations
Self-disorders—non-psychotic anomalous self-experiences—cluster specifically in schizophrenia spectrum disorders, including familial high-risk groups. Over three decades, the concept has matured from clinical observations into a defined research domain. Self-disorders serve as a quantifiable trait phenotype for genetic liability and as a risk phenotype that precedes overt symptoms like schizotypal features and positive, negative, and disorganized symptoms. This framework offers insights into the nature of these conditions and holds promise for improving diagnostic accuracy, prognostic assessments, and intervention targets.
Psychopathology
January 1, 2018
Andrea Raballo, Antonio Preti
Self-disorders are persistent, abnormal experiences of the self that indicate a vulnerability to schizophrenia. They influence how diagnostic symptoms develop over time and can be assessed using the Examination of Anomalous Self Experiences (EASE). Building on a recent longitudinal study, researchers examined how the descriptive dimensions of self-disorders—stream of consciousness, presence, corporeality, demarcation, and solipsism—interact. After a 5-year follow-up, the connections among these dimensions became tighter, confirming that EASE domains are interdependent aspects of an overall structural change in subjectivity.