EPA-1610 - Basic self-disturbance in psychosis: integrating phenomenology and neurosciences

Abstract

Recent theoretical and empirical work indicates renewed interest in the study of subjective experience in psychopathology (1,2). Phenomenological research shown that disturbance of the basic sense of self may be a core marker of the schizophrenia spectrum (3). This selfdisturbance occurs at the tacit, pre-reflective level of selfhood, where it exists a disruption of the sense of ownership of experience, associated with various anomalies of subjective experience. These anomalies include disturbed stream of consciousness, sense of presence, corporeality, self-demarcation and existential reorientation. All of these items are well described in the Examination of Anomalous Self-Experience (EASE) instrument (4). Also, recent researches try to elucidate the neurocognitive underpinnings of this basic self-disturbance (5). After introducing the classical phenomenological approach about psychosis (Minkowski, Binswanger, Conrad, Tellenbach Blankenburg), we propose to review current theories about altered self-experience (Parnas, Bovet, Sass), and their correlate with neurobiological postulates.