THE'WHAT'AND THE'WHO'IN THE CONSTITUTION OF PSYCHOPATHOLOGICAL PHENOTYPES

An embodied and enactive approach to psychopathology regards mental illness not a malfunctioning process occurring in the individual brain but a disturbed way of enacting a world, in particular, to co-constitute a shared world through adequate interaction with others. I will use schizophrenia as a paradigm case for this approach. Whereas current neuropsychological theories attribute the core disturbances in schizophrenia to higher order cognitive processes such as “theory of mind” or “meta-representation”. In contrast, phenomenological approaches locate the main disorder in schizophrenia on a lower level, regarding it as a fundamental disturbance of the embodied self, or a disembodiment. This includes (1) a weakening of the basic sense of self,(2) a disruption of implicit bodily functioning, and (3) a disconnection from the intercorporality with others. As a result of this disembodiment, the pre-reflective, practical …