Phenomenological Accounts

Abstract

Chapter 3 describes the importation, starting in the early 20th century, of phenomenological alternatives into the predominant psychiatric discourse on schizophrenia. One of the earliest to import phenomenology into psychosis research was Swiss-German psychiatrist Karl Jaspers, who, influenced by the philosopher Edmund Husserl, described an intersubjective impasse as the essence of schizophrenia, which he viewed as ultimately 'un-understandable.' Subsequent phenomenologically oriented researchers departed from Jaspers’ view of empathic impossibility by positing that psychosis was comprised by core alterations in the experiences of self and world that, albeit unusual, can be meaningfully understood from the perspective of lived experience. From R.D. Laing's theory of ontological insecurity to Blankenburg's description of the loss of 'natural self-evidence' and Louis Sass and colleagues’ 'ipseity disturbance model,' this chapter outlines the varied attempts of phenomenologists to describe psychosis and schizophrenia from the perspective of lived experience.