The Uncanny of the Illness Experience: Can Phenomenology Help?

The illness experience encompasses not only several changes in bodily processes but also the very feeling of becoming ill. This seemingly non-scientific aspect of being sick is characterized by forms of uncanny body experiences and an unhomelike being-in-the-world. Both include disconcerting phenomena, feelings of fear, restlessness, and inexplicability. In this paper we discuss some contributions aiming to understand the illness experience, focusing on the concept of the uncanny. This life event brings changes in the familiarity of our world, revelation of what previously was and should have remained hidden, loss of control, and the certainty of mortality. The experience of uncanniness is here conceptualized as a psychopathological phenomenon that should be regarded as a general symptom of diseases and should be identified and approached. We discuss the impact of these considerations on medical practice, focusing on the role of physicians and ultimately on the purpose of medicine.

Self and world experience in non-affective first episode of psychosis.

A disturbance of "minimal self," - of the immediate sense of mine-ness inherent in experience-is hypothesized to be the core disturbance in schizophrenia. Research with the Examination of Anomalous Self Experience (EASE) has demonstrated the selective aggregation of anomalous self-experiences in the schizophrenia spectrum. Conceptual research suggests that anomalous world experiences, including changes in the experience of space, time, and other persons, occur alongside anomalous self-experiences and are an important aspect of subjectivity in schizophrenia. The Examination of Anomalous World Experience (EAWE) is a recently published interview format designed to explore changes in world experience in schizophrenia. In the current study, 24 hospital outpatients with non-affective first-episode psychosis and 24 healthy-control participants were assessed with the EAWE and the EASE. First episode psychosis patients had total EAWE and EASE scores that were both, on average, significantly higher than the healthy-control group. EAWE and EASE scores were highly correlated, even after removing overlapping items. The distribution of EAWE items and subtypes in the first-episode psychosis sample was heterogeneous. We conclude that anomalous world experiences represent a relevant aspect of first-episode psychosis, and that they may be related to the self-disturbances thought to underlie schizophrenia spectrum disorders.