Making up symptoms: psychic indeterminacy and the construction of psychotic phenomena.

Psychotic experiences are far more varied than the brief descriptions in modern diagnostic manuals suggest. Historical clinical phenomenology was richer, and the narrowing of descriptions may be explained by Hacking's dynamic nominalism, where categories and the people they classify co-evolve. However, dynamic nominalism accounts for behavioral change but not changes in subjective experience. This paper argues that psychotic symptoms involve inherently indeterminate mental content. A naïve-introspectionist view assumes symptoms are reliably describable in principle, but contemporary philosophy of mind challenges this. Putting ineffable experiences into words changes their nature, resolving them into new forms.

Study at a glance

Abstract

SummaryPsychotic phenomena include a far wider range of experiences than is captured by the brief descriptions offered in contemporary diagnostic guides. Given the richness of historical clinical phenomenology, what can account for the recent ascendancy of relatively impoverished descriptions of psychosis? One possible explanation is provided by Hacking's notion of dynamic nominalism, where human categories change over time in tandem with those who they classify. But although dynamic nominalism makes sense of changes in behaviour, it fails to account for change at the level of subjective experience. In this paper, psychotic symptoms are addressed in the light of the indeterminacy of subjective mental content. A naïve-introspectionist approach to mental symptoms assumes that, notwithstanding practical difficulties, such symptoms are reliably describable in principle. Contemporary philosophy of mind challenges this assumption. Lighting upon a verbal description for ineffable phenomena changes their nature, resolving them into new forms.Declaration of interestNone.