Molecular Psychiatry
January 1, 2023
Evan J. Kyzar, George H Denfield
62 citations
Psychiatric diseases alter subjective experience, yet neuroscience mostly studies objective behaviors. Phenomenology, a philosophical tradition examining lived experience, can generate hypotheses about the neurobiological basis of mental illness. Early 20th-century phenomenological psychiatrists made important contributions, but this approach faded with operationalized diagnoses. Recently, clinical-phenomenological research has re-emerged. Using examples from mania and psychosis, the authors show that phenomenological studies can produce fruitful neuroscientific proposals. They advocate integrating phenomenological methods with modern neuroscience, including cross-species research and human subjects work, to move toward a unified understanding of mental illness.
Psychopathology
August 18, 2025
Evan J. Kyzar, George H Denfield, Jasper Feyaerts et al.
1 citation
Integrating methods from phenomenology can strengthen the application of dynamical systems theory (DST) in psychopathology research. Phenomenological psychopathology improves DST-based investigations by specifying core symptoms more precisely through a focus on subjective experiences and by deepening theoretical understanding of how symptoms evolve in severity over time. Using clinical high risk for psychosis as a test case, the article demonstrates the utility of combining phenomenologically informed theory and DST, examining the ipseity-disturbance model of psychosis development. The authors offer a vision for broader integration of DST and phenomenological research methods to better understand and predict psychiatric disorders and transitions in mental health states.
Psychopathology
January 1, 2024
George H Denfield, Evan J. Kyzar
1 citation
Subjective experience is central to mental illness but has been neglected in empirical psychopathology. A framework called the Nested States Model (NSM) describes the dynamic structure of experience as a system of nested states that influence each other across hierarchical layers. The NSM provides a scheme for characterizing patterns of experience in psychopathological processes, aiding clinical practice and research. It advances three aims: centering clinical formulations on subjective experience, organizing findings from clinical-phenomenological research to build broader models, and aligning perspectives on experience with brain dynamics to bridge phenomenological and neurophysiological work.
October 16, 2023
George H Denfield, Evan J. Kyzar
preprint
Subjective experience is central to mental illness but has been neglected in empirical psychopathology. The Nested States Model (NSM) offers a framework for constructing detailed phenomenological models by describing subjective experience as a system of nested states. This provides a structured scheme for operationalizing subjectivity, enabling empirical study. The NSM grounds thinking about psychopathological processes around states and their transitions, promising an approach that is close to individual experience, empirically tractable, and aligned with neuroscience research.
Journal of consciousness studies : controversies in science & the humanities
April 1, 2024
George H Denfield, Evan J. Kyzar
A framework called the Nested States Model is proposed to bridge the gap between subjective experience and brain activity. Building on philosophy of mind and phenomenology, the model characterizes both experiential states and brain states as layered, nested systems. Recognizing this structural homology—that both domains share a nested organization—allows for a more systematic approach to formulating hypotheses about how subjective mental states relate to neurophysiological processes. The model aims to guide empirical investigation into the relationship between subjectivity and neurobiology, addressing the lack of principled means currently available.