Phenomenology yesterday, today, and tomorrow: a proposed phenomenological response to the double challenges of contemporary recovery-oriented person-centered mental health care
Guilherme Peres Messas, Giovanni Stanghellini, Kenneth W.M. Fulford
Frontiers in Psychology September 21, 2023 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1240095 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Philosophy of mind |
| Citations | 24 |
| Key points | Argues that a dialectical synthesis of phenomenology's science-centered and individual-centered roles is needed to support recovery-oriented practice, and proposes a model of "recovery" defined by patients and carers as experts-by-experience rather than by professionals' values. Contends that psychiatry, contrary to 20th-century stereotypes, is leading healthcare in developing resources for 21st-century person-centered clinical care. |
Abstract
This paper argues that a dialectical synthesis of phenomenology's traditional twin roles in psychiatry (one science-centered, the other individual-centered) is needed to support the recovery-oriented practice that is at the heart of contemporary person-centered mental health care. The paper is in two main sections. Section I illustrates the different ways in which phenomenology's two roles have played out over three significant periods of the history of phenomenology in 20th century psychiatry: with the introduction of phenomenology in Karl Jaspers' General Psychopathology in 1913; with the development a few years later of structural phenomenological psychopathology; and in the period of post-War humanism. Section II is concerned with the role of phenomenology in contemporary mental health. There has been a turn to phenomenology in the current period, we argue, in response to what amounts to an uncoupling of academic psychiatry from front-line clinical care. Corresponding with the two roles of phenomenology, this uncoupling has both scientific aspects and clinical aspects. The latter, we suggest, is most fully expressed in a new model of "recovery," defined, not by the values of professionals as experts-by-training, but by the values of patients and carers as experts-by-experience, specifically, by what is important to the quality of life of the individual concerned in the situation in question. We illustrate the importance of recovery, so defined, and the challenges raised by it for both the evidence-base and the values-base of clinical decision-making, with brief clinical vignettes. It is to these challenges we argue, that phenomenology through a synthesis of its twin roles is uniquely equipped to respond. Noting, however, the many barriers to such a synthesis, we argue that in the current state of development of the field, it is by way of a dialectical synthesis of phenomenology's roles that we should proceed. From such a dialectic, a genuine synthesis of roles may ultimately emerge. We conclude with a note on the wider significance of these developments, arguing that contrary to 20th century stereotypes, they show psychiatry to be leading the way for healthcare as a whole, in developing the resources for 21st century person-centered clinical care.
Comparable studies
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| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Psychosis as a state of aberrant salience: a framework linking biology, phenomenology, and pharmacology in schizophrenia. | 2003 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| From dopamine to salience to psychosis--linking biology, pharmacology and phenomenology of psychosis. | 2005 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| How do the brain's time and space mediate consciousness and its different dimensions? Temporo-spatial theory of consciousness (TTC). | 2017 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The phenomenology of deep brain stimulation-induced changes in OCD: an enactive affordance-based model. | 2013 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Looking for the Self: Phenomenology, Neurophysiology and Philosophical Significance of Drug-induced Ego Dissolution | 2017 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
Citations in the library
Cited by 2
Cites 6
- The lived experience of psychosis: a bottom-up review co-written by experts by experience and academics. World Psychiatry June 1, 2022
- Self, Solipsism, and Schizophrenic Delusions Philosophy, psychiatry & psychology June 1, 2001
- Phenomenological and neurocognitive perspectives on delusions: A critical overview. World Psychiatry June 1, 2015
- The Dialectics of Altered Experience: How to Validly Construct a Phenomenologically Based Diagnosis in Psychiatry. Frontiers in Psychiatry April 12, 2022
- Do delusions have and give meaning? Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences August 23, 2021
and 1 more in the library