Interpersonal Experience and Psychopathology

Abstract

The article deals with relational aspects of mental disorders. The author takes into account the influence of mental illness on intersubjectivity and interpersonal relations in three aspects: (1) “attitude to the illness,” that is, changes in the functioning of the subject and difficulties in dealing with the experience of mental illness; (2) “dialogical relationship” in the form of difficulties in maintaining social cognition and entering into relationships with others; (3) “social consensus,” that is, difficulties in adapting to the social world and a common sense deficit. The analysis is made with reference to phenomenological research in contemporary philosophy of psychiatry. The result of this study is a reconstruction of a “different existence,” in other words, presentation of the transformation of the life-world and the specific way of inhabiting the world of a person in a mental crisis. Symptoms and experience of the illness are presented in the light of human possibilities of transformation. The analysis emphasizes the role of patients’ subjectivity and their efforts to find the meaning of a painful situation. The study of subjective aspects of disorders aims to reveal their consequences for understanding how to deal with mental crisis and to understand the positive aspects of the recovery process.

Keywords

• experience of mental illness
• phenomenological psychopathology
• intersubjectivity
• social cognition
• common sense
• recovery process