Peer-professional first-person account: schizophrenia from the inside--phenomenology and the integration of causes and meanings.
Peter K Chadwick
Schizophrenia Bulletin January 2007 DOI: 10.1093/schbul/sbl034 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Case study Case report Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 1 |
| Population | The author himself, an investigator in paranoia and schizophrenia research who experienced a psychotic episode |
| Interventions | Haloperidol change of social scenario |
| Topics | Philosophy of mind |
| Key findings | The author attributes his psychotic crisis to abuse of a person predisposed to psychosis through attentional style, poor context apprehension, high emotional intensity, and poor emotion and arousal modulation. He reports that haloperidol combined with cognitive and psychodynamic insight and a change of social setting was most effective, and argues that experiential life itself shaped decisions and outlook central to the episode and recovery. |
Abstract
An autobiographical account of the author's psychotic crisis blends his own insights with relevant extant research on schizophrenia. As an investigator in the fields of paranoia and schizophrenia research, who has himself been psychotic, this may help to link the narratives of professionals and patients. The episode is interpreted as having been precipitated by abuse of a person with susceptibilities to psychosis in terms of his attentional style, poor context apprehension, high emotional intensity, and poor emotion and arousal modulation. The most effective therapies proved to be a blend of haloperidol medication, cognitive and psychodynamic insight, and a total change of social scenario to an ambience less abusive of feminine men (the author used to be a transvestite). Throughout the narrative presented, it is clear that qualities of experiential life were not merely causally impotent responses to brain processes but themselves inducing of critical decisions and of outlook on life that played a large part in the eventuation of, and recovery from, the psychotic state.
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
Cited by 3
- The lived experience of psychosis: a bottom-up review co-written by experts by experience and academics. World Psychiatry June 1, 2022
- World/self ambivalence: A shared mechanism in different subsets of psychotic experiences? Linking symptoms with resting-state fMRI. Psychiatry Research Neuroimaging May 30, 2020
- Hippocampal temporal-parietal junction interaction in the production of psychotic symptoms: a framework for understanding the schizophrenic syndrome. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 2012