A critical review of phenomenological literature on self-experience in schizophrenia

Abstract

Early conceptions of schizophrenia suggest that it is a disorder of consciousness, primarily manifested as a disturbance of self-experience. However, it is only recently that researchers are focusing on the experience of self in schizophrenia. Several recent phenomenological researchers argue that the disorders of self-experience represent the experiential core of schizophrenia, suggesting that the basic defects in self-experience are already subtly present in schizotypal or schizoid like personality traits typically present in schizophrenics (Parnas&Handest, 2003; Sass&Parnas, 2003). These authors argue that schizophrenia is primarily a disorder of consciousness clinically manifested as a disturbance of the sense of self. Authors investigating schizophrenia from a phenomenological perspective seem to have developed some consensus regarding the central role of autism, intentionality, ipseity and intersubjectivity – central constructs in phenomenological conceptions of the structure of consciousness. However, the focus of phenomenology on the entire person develops insights that are circular since all points of exploration reveal a close relationship between various dimensions of self/world experience, thus leading to a circular argument. The aim of this dissertation is to explore the relationship between the aforementioned constructs in a manner that addresses the circular logic implicit in the phenomenological structure in which certain researchers have embedded schizophrenia. A further aim is to provide a phenomenologically oriented conceptual framework in which the seemingly bizarre nature of schizophrenia may be made intelligible: that the symptoms may be interpreted as attempts at re-establishing a unified sense of self and a connection with the world of others. Copyright