The Contribution of Phenomenology to the Assessment of Severe Non-Psychotic Forms of Psychopathological Conditions in Transitional Age Youth: Two Case Studies.
Matteo Ballabio, Giovanni Stanghellini
Psychopathology 2025 DOI: 10.1159/000544720 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Case study Case report Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 2 |
| Population | Transitional age youth (TAY) with severe psychopathology |
| Topics | Philosophy of mind |
| Keywords | Case report Early diagnosis Phenomenological diagnosis Phenomenological psychopathology Self-disorders Transitional age youth |
| Key findings | Phenomenological constructs of self-disorders and anomalies of common sense can complement standard nosographic assessments to better characterize severe psychopathology in transitional age youth. |
Abstract
In recent times, adolescents with severe forms of psychopathology that do not unambiguously fit into a precise diagnostic category have come to clinical observation. The diagnoses attributed to these young patients range from borderline personality disorder, to affective disorders, ADHD, and others. These diagnoses are mainly based on behavioural abnormalities (e.g., social withdrawal, aggressiveness, self-injuring behaviour), but fail to capture the experiential core of their suffering. Research in psychopathology, particularly that with a phenomenological approach, has long been committed to identifying early markers of schizophrenia in clinical pictures that precede the full onset of this pathology. In this paper, two case studies in transitional age youth (TAY) and additional material taken from our own clinical practice are presented where self-disorders and anomalies of common sense - originally developed to phenomenologically characterise the schizophrenic spectrum phenotype, and especially non-delusional forms of schizophrenia - are used to complement standard nosographic assessments. We propose that using some of these phenomenological constructs can shed light on certain TAY pictures, in particular the most serious ones, helping us grasp their psychopathological core, and provide further elements for a fine-grained characterization and in-depth understanding. We propose as a work-in-progress a set of tentative criteria to differentiate such phenomena in TAY patients as compared to patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia.
Comparable studies
Other case reports and case series on philosophy of mind, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| How does it feel to lack a sense of boundaries? A case study of a long-term mindfulness meditator. A single long-term mindfulness practitioner (S) with 40 years of practice in... | 2015 | Qualitative case study | n = 1 |
| An extended case study on the phenomenology of sequence-space synesthesia Single adult with sequence-space synesthesia | 2014 | Phenomenological case study | n = 1 |
| "I can't tell whether it's my hand": a pilot study of the neurophenomenology of body representation during the rubber hand illusion in trauma-related disorders. Individuals with the dissociative subtype of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) | 2016 | Case series | n = 3 |
| Neurophenomenology of an Altered State of Consciousness: An fMRI Case Study. A single research participant with self-proclaimed ecstatic Kundalini meditative... | 2016 | Case study | n = 1 |
| Multimodal neurophenomenology of advanced concentration absorption meditation: An intensively sampled case study of Jhana. One advanced meditator with over 23,000 hours of meditation practice | 2024 | Case study | n = 1 |
Citations in the library
Cites 3
- The lived experience of psychosis: a bottom-up review co-written by experts by experience and academics. World Psychiatry June 1, 2022
- The Inventory of Psychotic-Like Anomalous Self-Experiences (IPASE): Development and validation. Psychological Assessment January 2017
- What is it like to be a person with schizophrenia in the social world? A first-person perspective study on Schizophrenic dissociality--part 1: state of the art. Psychopathology 2011