Schizophrenia and Selfhood

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Ratcliffe
Keyword(s):  
Psychiatric Illness ◽  
Interpersonal Trauma ◽  
Intentional State ◽  
Recent Application ◽  
Alternative Account ◽  
Modal Structure ◽  
Minimal Self ◽  
Auditory Verbal Hallucination ◽  
Specific Sense

This chapter introduces some of the central concepts, themes, and issues addressed in the book. First of all, it discusses the concept of ‘minimal self’ and its recent application to schizophrenia and auditory verbal hallucination (AVH). Then it raises the question of whether minimal self includes only the sense of having some kind of experience or, in addition, a more specific sense of the type of intentional state one is in. A refined account of minimal self is proposed, according to which it centrally involves the latter: a grasp of the modalities of intentionality. It is further argued that certain anomalous experiences centrally involve disturbances of modal structure. Following this, the chapter considers an alternative account of AVHs, according to which they are diagnostically non-specific, meaningful symptoms of interpersonal trauma. In so doing, it stresses the need to place more emphasis on the interpersonal aspects of psychiatric illness, and shows how minimal self, as conceived of here, could turn out to be both developmentally and constitutively dependent on ways of relating to other people.

Selfhood, Schizophrenia, and the Interpersonal Regulation of Experience

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Ratcliffe
Keyword(s):  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Traumatic Events ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Intentional State ◽  
Primitive Form ◽  
Minimal Self ◽  
Psychiatric Conditions ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship

This paper addresses the view that schizophrenia involves disturbance of the minimal self, and that this distinguishes it from other psychiatric conditions. I challenge the distinction between a minimal and an interpersonally constituted sense of self, through a consideration of the relationship between psychosis and interpersonally induced trauma. First of all, I suggest that even minimal self-experience must include a pre-reflective sense of what kind of intentional state one is in. Then I address the extent to which human experience and thought are interpersonally regulated. I propose that traumatic events, in childhood and/or in adulthood, can erode a primitive form of “trust” in other people that the integrity of intentionality depends upon, thus disrupting the phenomenological boundaries between intentional state types. I conclude that a distinction between minimal and interpersonal self is untenable, and that schizophrenia should be thought of in relational terms rather than simply as a disorder of the individual.

Metaphilosophical Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Ratcliffe
Keyword(s):  
Psychiatric Illness ◽  
Intentional State ◽  
Philosophical Position ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Wide Range

This chapter draws the discussion to a close by summarizing and further exploring some philosophical implications of the book’s overall position. Among other things, it addresses the nature of ‘belief’, and argues that this term, even when it is used in a restrictive and technical way, most likely accommodates a range of subtly different kinds of conviction, different ways of taking something to be the case. This applies not only to psychiatric illness, but also more generally. Issues are therefore raised for the practice of philosophy itself. When one is said to believe a philosophical claim, it is not always clear what kind of conviction is involved or, for that matter, which kinds of conviction are appropriate to which kinds of philosophical position. More generally, the structure of intentionality encompasses a wide range of different intentional state types and does not respect clear-cut, categorical distinctions between them. These subtleties are masked by certain uses of language, in philosophy and elsewhere. Reliance on univocal notions of ‘belief’, ‘desire’, and the like is thus rendered problematic.

Intentionality and Interpersonal Experience

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Ratcliffe
Keyword(s):  
Perceptual Experience ◽  
Intentional State ◽  
Modal Structure ◽  
General Account ◽  
Interpersonal Experience

This chapter addresses several interrelated ways in which other people are implicated in the development, sustenance, and disruption of the modal structure of intentionality. It first considers some of the roles that relations with others play in shaping perceptual experience, focusing on how the cohesive, anticipatory structure of perceptual experience is interpersonally regulated. After that, it turns to belief, arguing that the structure of belief, the intelligibility of the distinction between what is and is not the case, rests on a more primitive sense of certainty. It then proceeds to develop a more general account of how the sense of being in a given type of intentional state is largely attributable to its distinctive anticipation-fulfilment profile. All such profiles, it is argued, depend on an overarching pattern of anticipation and fulfilment, in the guise of habitual confidence or certainty. This pattern is inextricable from a certain way of experiencing and relating to other people in general. When the overall anticipation-fulfilment structure of experience is disrupted, the boundaries between intentional state types become less clear. This renders a person susceptible to more pronounced and localized disruptions, of the kind involved in many delusions and hallucinations.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Ratcliffe
Keyword(s):  
Social World ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Substantial Proportion ◽  
Intentional State ◽  
Thought Insertion ◽  
Modal Structure ◽  
Auditory Verbal Hallucinations ◽  
The Social

This chapter outlines the overall argument of the book, emphasizing its two principal theses. First of all, it sketches the position that thought insertion, and also a substantial proportion of auditory verbal hallucinations, consist of disturbances in the sense of being in one or another kind of intentional state, in the modal structure of intentionality (meaning our grasp of the various modalities of intentionality, such as believing, perceiving, remembering, and imagining, as distinct from one another). Second, it introduces the view that the integrity of human experience, including what we might term the most basic experience of self, depends on ways of relating to other people and to the social world as a whole. The chapter concludes with summaries of the seven chapters that follow.

scholarly journals Thought Insertion Clarified

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Ratcliffe
Keyword(s):  
Substantial Proportion ◽  
Intentional State ◽  
Thought Insertion ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
Auditory Verbal Hallucination ◽  
Anomalous Experience

This chapter begins by considering the possibility that a number of factors contribute to the sense of being in an intentional state, and that these can come into conflict. The remainder of the chapter argues that thought insertion (TI) and certain kinds of auditory verbal hallucination (AVH) are to be understood in this way. There is a difference between experiencing a process of thinking as alien and experiencing thought content as alien. It is argued that TI involves the latter. Hence it could just as well be described as experiencing one’s own thought contents in a strange, perception-like way. To further support this interpretation, the chapter considers AVHs and shows that a substantial proportion of experiences that are described in AVH terms can equally be conveyed in terms of TI. What we have is an anomalous experience that lies somewhere between thinking and perceiving. The content of the experience continues to resemble that of a thought. Even so, a sense of perceiving predominates. The chapter concludes by arguing that it is unhelpful to conceive of AVH / TI in terms of a distinction between agency and subjectivity or ownership.

Review of Psychiatric Illness in Physicians.

1983 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-243
Author(s):  
Samuel Pieper
Keyword(s):  
Psychiatric Illness
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