Exploration of Everydayness in Schizophrenia: A Phenomenological Approach

Abstract

This article explores everydayness as a specific form of experience of the world and its alterations in schizophrenia. In the field of phenomenological psychopathology, the transformations of subjective experience in schizophrenia have been the subject of a great deal of work, but the relationship between these alterations of subjective experience and the experience of the everyday remains largely unexplored. A phenomenological point of view leads us to explore everydayness as a constitutive framework of experience, one that may be impeded in schizophrenia. The question of the everyday allows us to bridge the gap between the descriptions of subjective experience proposed by phenomenological psychopathology and what is at stake in therapeutic treatment. It seems to us that the work of constructing an individual narrative of the everyday may be a useful psychotherapeutic approach for helping patients rebuild the framework of everydayness.