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Background: Psychotic‐like anomalous self‐experiences (ASEs) are core and early features of schizophrenia spectrum disorders, which have been recently also postulated to underlie embodiment disturbance in feeding and eating disorders (FEDs). The present study was aimed at investigating the interplay between ASEs and specific psychopathology in FED. Methods: Ninety persons with Anorexia Nervosa and 41 with Bulimia Nervosa were evaluated with the inventory of psychotic‐like anomalous self‐experiences (IPASE), identity and eating disorders (IDEA), body uneasiness test (BUT), and eating disorder examination questionnaire (EDE‐Q). The same assessment was performed for 92 subjects recruited from the general population. Structural equation modelling was employed to test the role of embodiment/identity disorders in mediating the relationship between ASEs and ED psychopathology. Results: Patients with FED displayed high scores on IPASE, comparable with people with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. A significant correlation was also demonstrated between IPASE, BUT and EDE‐Q. All IPASE domains were strongly related to feeling extraneous from one's own body by IDEA. All IPASE domains demonstrated a high relationship with BUT Depersonalization scale. A strong correlation was also reported between total scores of IPASE and IDEA. The mediation model confirmed that ASEs impact on FED symptomatology through the mediation of both embodiment/identity disorders and body image. Discussion: Anomalous interoceptive processes may represent the first step of a maladaptive process‐impairing embodiment, selfhood, and identity in FED. Assessment of ASEs might be a valid tool to identify an early‐shared vulnerability of severe disorders characterized by embodiment alterations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Depressive disorders, despite being classified as mood or affective disorders, are known to include disturbances in the experience of body, space, time, and intersubjectivity. However, current diagnostic manuals largely ignore these aspects of depressive experience. In this article, we use phenomenological accounts of embodiment as a theoretical foundation for a qualitative study of abnormal body phenomena (ABP) in depressive disorders. Methods: 550 patients affected by schizophrenic and affective disorders were interviewed in a clinical setting. Interviews sought to uncover the qualitative features of experiences through self-descriptions. Clinical files were subsequently digitized and re-examined using consensual qualitative research. Results: Ninety-nine out of 100 patients with MDD reported at least one ABP. From cross-analysis of the MDD sample, we obtained 4 general categories of ABP, 3 of which had additional subcategories. The 4 categories include slowed embodied temporality (N = 90), anomalous vital rhythms (N = 82), worries about one's body (N = 22), and body deformation (N = 47). Conclusions: The results provide empirical evidence in support of theoretical discussions of embodiment in MDD found in the work of classical and contemporary phenomenologists. The findings also provide nuanced insight into the experience of persons living with MDD. Some categories of ABP, like slowed embodied temporality, can help to finely characterize psychomotor retardation or the so-called "medically unexplained symptoms" (MUS). This fine-tuned characterization can help to connect MUS to neuropsychological and neurobiological (e.g., alterations of interoceptive processes linked to anomalies of the brain resting-state hypothesis) and inflammatory (e.g., studies linking environmental stressors, inflammation mediators, and neurovegetative and affective symptoms) models of MDD. Our results can also support a pathogenic model of MDD, which posits, on the phenomenal level, ABP as the point of departure for the development of secondary symptoms including cognitive elaborations of these, namely, delusions about the body. Moreover, some of the categories, when contrasted with phenomenological qualitative studies of other disorders, provide conceptual resources of differential diagnosis and of identifying a "depressive core syndrome." For example, findings within category 4, deformation of the body, provide resources for using ABP to distinguish between MDD and schizophrenia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abnormal space experience (ASE) is a common feature of schizophrenia, despite its absence from current diagnostic manuals. Phenomenological psychopathologists have investigated this experiential disturbance, but these studies were typically based on anecdotal evidence from limited clinical interactions. To better understand the nature of ASE in schizophrenia and attempt to validate previous phenomenological accounts, we conducted a qualitative study of 301 people with schizophrenia. Clinical files were analyzed by means of Consensual Qualitative Research, an inductive method for analyzing descriptions of lived experience. Our main findings can be summed up as follows: (1) ASEs are a relevant feature in schizophrenia (70.1% of patients reported at least 1 ASE). (2) ASE in schizophrenia are characterized by 5 main categories of phenomena (listed from more represented to less represented): (a) experiences of strangeness and unfamiliarity (eg "Everything appeared weird. Face distorted, world looks terrible, nasty"); (b) experiences of centrality/invasion of peripersonal space (eg "Handkerchief on scaffolding: message telling him something"); (c) alteration of the quality of things (eg "Buildings leaning down"); (d) alteration of the quality of the environment (eg "Person sitting six feet away seemed to be at an infinite distance"); and (e) itemization and perceptive salience (eg "All patients [in ward] have bright eyes"). (3) ASEs are much more frequent in acute (91.9%) than in chronic (28.15%) schizophrenia patients. Moreover, our findings further empirical support for phenomenological accounts of schizophrenia, including those developed by Jaspers, Binswanger, Minkowski, and Conrad, among others and provide the background for translational research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Patients with schizophrenia display experiential anomalies in their feelings and cognitions arising in the domain of their lived body. These abnormal bodily phenomena (ABP) are not part of diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia. One of the reasons is the difficulty to assess specific ABP for schizophrenia spectrum disorders. The present study aimed to explore the presence in patients with schizophrenia of specific ABP. Methods: We used a semistructured interview--the Abnormal Bodily Phenomena questionnaire (ABPq), an instrument devised to detect andmeasureABP specific to patientswith schizophrenia. Fifty-one outpatients affected by schizophrenia and 28 euthymic outpatients affected by bipolar disorder type Iwith psychotic features (BD-pf-e)were recruited. Before assessing the specificity for schizophrenia of the observed ABP, we tested the internal consistency and the convergent validity of the ABPq in patients with schizophrenia. Specificity was assessed by examining potential differences in ABPq among the patients with schizophrenia in remission (SCZ-r) and BD-pf-e. Results: The ABPq shows strong internal consistency and convergent validity. As to the specificity, ABP measured by ABPq were more frequent and severe in SCZ-r than in BD-pf-e. In particular, all ABPq dimensions, except "Coherence," had at least mild severity in over 50% of SCZ-r, while dimensions with at least mild severity were observed in 5-10% of the BD-pf-e. Conclusions: These findings can contribute to establish more precise phenomenal boundaries between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, to explore the borders between nonpsychotic and psychotic forms of ABP, between ABP and negative and disorganized symptoms, and to enlighten core aspects of schizophrenia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a critical review of research on the subjective experience of social dysfunction in persons with schizophrenia. Studies from the phenomenological and cognitive paradigms are examined, and significant outcomes and shortcomings are pointed out. Clinical phenomenologists have mainly interpreted schizophrenic dissociality as an anomaly of prereflexive attunement. The main shortcoming of phenomenological research is that it lacks adequate methodology to collect reliable data since most studies are based on the analysis of a few typical cases. Cognitivism has reliably documented disorders of social functioning in large-scale experimental studies. The main shortcoming of most cognitive paradigms is that they do not properly investigate the personal level of experience in real-world functioning. We conclude that there is a need to reliably collect data through quantitative as well as qualitative methodology as established and accepted by the scientific community in the area of schizophrenic dissociality, reflecting the subjective experiences of people with schizophrenia in the real world. Copyright © 2011 S. Karger AG, Basel [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is an explorative study on the values of persons with schizophrenia based on transcripts of individual therapy sessions conducted for 40 persons with chart diagnoses of schizophrenia or schizotypal disorder. Values are action-guiding attitudes that subject human activities to be worthy of praise or blame. The schizophrenic value system conveys an overall crisis of common sense. The outcome of this has been designated as antagonomia and idionomia. Antagonomia reflects the choice to take an eccentric stand in the face of commonly shared assumptions and the here and now “other.” Idionomia reflects the feeling of the radical uniqueness and exceptionality of one's being with respect to common sense and the other human beings. This sentiment of radical exceptionality is felt as a “gift,” often in view of an eschatological mission or a vocation to a superior, novel, metaphysical understanding of the world. The aim of this study is neither establishing new diagnostic criteria nor suggesting that values play an etio-pathogenetical role in the development of schizophrenia but improving our understanding of the “meaning” of schizophrenic experiences and beliefs, and by doing so reducing stigmatization, and enhancing the specificity and validity of “psychotic symptoms” (especially bizarre delusions) and of “social and occupational dysfunction” through a detailed description of the anthropological and existential matrix they arise from. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]