Abstract
ABSTRACTTime-consciousness has long been a focus of research in phenomenology and phenomenological psychology. We advance and extend this tradition of research by focusing on the character of temporal experience under conditions of mania. Symptom scales and diagnostic criteria for mania are peppered with temporally inflected language: increased rate of speech, racing thoughts, flight-of-ideas, hyperactivity. But what is the underlying structure of temporal experience in manic episodes? We tackle this question using a strategically hybrid approach. We recover and reconstruct three hypotheses regarding manic temporality that were advanced and modeled by two pioneers of clinical phenomenology: Eugène Minkowski (1885–1972) and Ludwig Binswanger (1881–1966). We then test, critique, and refine these hypotheses using heterophenomenological methods in an interview-based study of persons with a history of bipolar and a current diagnosis of acute mania. Our conclusions support a central hypothesis due to Minkowski and Binswanger, namely, that disturbance in the formal structure of temporal experience is a core feature of mania. We argue that a suitably refined variant of Binswanger’s model of disturbance in manic protention helps to explain a striking pattern of impaired insight and impaired reasoning in manic episodes.
Highlights
Symptom scales and diagnostic criteria for mania are peppered with temporally inflected language: increased rate of speech, racing thoughts, flight-ofideas, hyperactivity
Drawing on insights from that tradition, we bring into focus an aspect of temporal experience in mania that has not been thematized in recent empirical research and which is distinct from the experience of passing time, time flow, or judgement of duration
We employed the technique of “second-person phenomenology” on which we have reported in earlier work (Owen, Freyenhagen, Hotopf, & Martin, 2015; Owen, Freyenhagen, & Martin, 2018; Owen, Freyenhagen, Martin, & David, 2017)
Summary
Symptom scales and diagnostic criteria for mania are peppered with temporally inflected language: increased rate of speech, racing thoughts, flight-ofideas, hyperactivity. (Mahlberg, Kienast, Bschor, & Adli, 2008) These recent findings support earlier controlled studies which reported on accelerated subjective time experience in mania (Mezey & Knight, 1965; Tysk, 1984). Drawing on insights from that tradition, we bring into focus an aspect of temporal experience in mania that has not been thematized in recent empirical research and which is distinct from the experience of passing time, time flow, or judgement of duration. In what follows our aim is to recover and extend this tradition of clinical phenomenological investigation of temporal experience, with particular attention to the experience of acute mania. In the final sections of the article (Sections 5 and 6), we test and refine Minkowski’s hypotheses and Binswanger’s models using heterophenomenological data from an interview-based study of temporal experience in the acutely manic phase of what is clinically described as “bipolar disorder” or “bipolar I.”. Our results bring into focus a structure of Husserlian protention that has not been generally recognized, which is displayed most vividly under conditions of pathology, and which suggests a deep connection among temporality, inductive reasoning, and self-knowledge
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