Temporal experience as a core quality in mental disorders
Michael A Schwartz2020, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences
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Abstract
The goal of this paper is to introduce Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences’ thematic issue on disordered temporalities. The authors begin by discussing the main reason for the neglect of temporal experience in present-day psychiatric nosologies, mainly, its reduction to clock time. Methodological challenges facing research on temporal experience include addressing the felt sense of time, its structure, and its pre-reflective aspects in the life-world setting. In the second part, the paper covers the contributions to the thematic issue concerning temporal experience in anxiety, depression, mania, addiction, post-traumatic stress disorder, autism, and in recovery from psychosis. The authors argue in favor of integrative and cross-disciplinary approaches. In conclusion, they present time as a significant aspect of human suffering.
Related papers
Disturbed temporalities. Insights from phenomenological psychiatry (in: "Time and Society", 2016).
The article gives an account of various disturbed experiences of time from a phenomenological perspective. The author distinguishes three levels for addressing variations of temporal experience—the temporal structure of consciousness itself, the actual experience of time, and the sociopolitical temporality. He excludes the psychological type of argument, exemplified by Philip Zimbardo’s Time Perspective Inventory and concentrates on disorders in which the temporal structure of consciousness is itself altered. The clinical examples of disturbed temporalities being investigated come from studies of two influential, 20th-century German phenomenological psychiatrists: Ludwig Binswanger (1881–1966) and Viktor Emil von Gebsattel (1883–1974) and include mania, phobia, schizophrenia, depression, and addiction. Philosophical examples come from Hannah Arendt’s “The Life of the Mind.” It is argued that not all disturbed experiences of time related to mental disorders are pathological, but that we can distinguish such experiences from their less severe varieties by appealing to the value-free norm of primordial temporality. A psychotic experience of internal time of the self coming to a standstill exemplifies such a pathological situation, in which temporal experience is not only altered, but ruined.
Toward a unified view of time: Erwin W. Straus' phenomenological psychopathology of temporal experience (in: "Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences", 2017)
The article covers Erwin W. Straus’ (1891–1975) views on the problem of time and temporal experience in the context of psychopathology. Beside Straus’ published scholarship, including his papers dealing exclusively with the subject of time, the sources utilized in this essay comprise several of Straus’ unpublished manuscripts on temporality (all from the Erwin. W. Straus Archive, Simon Silverman Phenomenology Center, Duquesne University, USA), with the primary focus on the1952 manuscript Temporal Horizons, which is discussed in greater detail and subsequently published for the first time in this journal. In the first part of the article, the author introduces what he considers to be the central tension of the whole of Straus’ work on the issue of time, namely, the tension stemming from a dualistic account of time with its personal (experienced) and impersonal (clock time) dimensions. Interpretative developments of this tension are followed covering Straus’ early German works and his late American scholarship. The author presents Straus’ way of overcoming the dualistic account of time and his arguments in favour of what is termed here the unified view of time. Of critical importance for the unified view is Straus’ concept of today, which is extensively commented upon. In the second part of the article, the author focuses on the psychopathological consequences of the unified view as seen by Straus. A clear-cut boundary between a normal and a psychotic experience of time is supposed to lie in breaking the bond between the personal and the impersonal orders of time, leading to a fundamental estrangement. This view, it is claimed, is already present in a nutshell in Straus’ earliest work, and is elaborated upon later. In conclusion, both the merits and the weaknesses of Straus’ account of temporality are presented. A major advantage is that Straus abstains from a dualistic conception of time and reappraises the often-devalued clock time. A fundamental drawback is that Straus does not venture to explore the pathological varieties of temporal experience and fails to specify the acknowledged differences between, on the one hand, psychotic elements in depressive disorders, and, on the other hand, such elements in schizophrenic disturbances.
Temporality and psychopathology
The paper first introduces the concept of implicit and explicit temporality, referring to time as pre-reflectively lived vs. consciously experienced. Implicit time is based on the constitutive synthesis of inner time consciousness on the one hand, and on the conative-affective dynamics of life on the other hand. Explicit time results from an interruption or negation of implicit time and unfolds itself in the dimensions of present, past and future. It is further shown that temporality, embodiment and intersubjectivity are closely connected: While implicit temporality is characterised by tacit bodily functioning and by synchronisation with others, explicit temporality arises with states of desynchronisation, that is, of a retardation or acceleration of inner time in relation to external or social processes. These states often bring the body to awareness as an obstacle as well. On this basis, schizophrenia and melancholic depression are investigated as paradigm cases for a psychopathology of temporality. Major symptoms of schizophrenia such as thought disorder, thought insertion, hallucinations or passivity experiences may be regarded as manifesting a disturbance of the constitutive synthesis of time consciousness, closely connected with a weakening of the underlying pre-reflective self-awareness or ipseity. This results in a fragmentation of the intentional arc, a loss of selfcoherence and the appearance of major self-disturbances. Depression, on the other hand, is mostly triggered by a desynchronisation from the social environment and further develops into an inhibition of the conative-affective dynamics of life. As will be shown, both mental illnesses bear witness of the close connection of temporality, embodiment and intersubjectivity.
Fuchs, T., & Van Duppen, Z. (2017). Time and Events: On the Phenomenology of Temporal Experience in Schizophrenia (Ancillary Article to EAWE Domain 2). Psychopathology.
Temporality and its disturbances have been a major topic of phenomenological psychopathology. Particularly Minkowski, Kimura, and Blankenburg described the temporal dimension of schizophrenia. After a brief introduction to their ideas, we describe more recent approaches to temporality in more depth. To this aim, we first distinguish between implicit and explicit time. Implicit time is based on the constitutive synthesis of inner time consciousness on the one hand, and on the conative-affective dynamics of life on the other. Explicit or conscious time experience arises with an interruption or negation of implicit time, and it unfolds itself in the dimensions of present, past, and future. Implicit time is based on a fluid and tacit bodily functioning and on affective synchronization with others, while explicit time arises through states of desynchronization, for example through retardation or acceleration of subjective time in relation to the social sphere. We clarify how a disturbance in temporality can lead to major symptoms of schizophrenia, such as thought disorders, hallucinations, or passivity experiences, and then consider the role of explicit temporal disturbances in schizophrenia.
On Time and Temporality From a Clinic and Psychoanalytic Point of View
With a psychoanalytic session as a starting point, we discuss psychoanalysis’ temporal dimension, the analysis of a dream and the associative work of analyst and patient. We also discuss the importance of this temporal dimension for the co-constructed experience of the analytic third.
Phenomenology and temporality in psychopathology: Calibrating qualitative phenomenological methods according to the timescale of subjective reports
Many methodologies for systematic study of lived experience have been proposed. Methods are typically calibrated in terms of the depth and complexity of data collection and whether they consider reports on pre-reflective experience admissible. Even though it has been shown that lived experience occurs at different timescales (elementary, integrative, narrative), contemporary methods tend to focus on momentary experience. We trace the focus on momentary experience to the current cultural milieu and attitudes in the history of psychology. We point out the need for studying temporally extended experiences in the field of psychopathology. We propose that lied experience at different timescales are nested within each other and that this principle can be used to organize data collected with qualitative phenomenological methods. We suggest that temporally extended experience occur at the narrative level of description (i.e., they consist of experiential reports and sense-making).
Disturbed time experience during and after psychosis
Schizophrenia Research: Cognition, 2019
Disturbances in time experience have been argued to play a significant, if not causative role in the clinical presentation of schizophrenia. Phenomenological considerations suggest a fragmented or dis-articulated time experience causing both primary symptoms such as hallucinations, delusions, and self-disorders, as well as an intersubjective desynchronization. We employed content analysis on material collected from patients diagnosed with schizophrenia using the Time Questionnaire to generate hypotheses on possible disturbances of time experience in schizophrenia. As a key result we find evidence for the distinction between acute psychotic and postpsychotic syndromes. Acute psychosis is predominantly a disturbance of the passage of time, whereas the remission from psychosis is primarily defined by changes in the experience of the explicit structure of time integrating past, present, and future. We discuss our findings with regards to previous insights and observations on time experience and time perception. We suggest our findings hold significance for the diagnostic and therapeutic understanding of schizophrenia as well as for future integrative research on time experience in general. Duppen, 2017). With respect to the social context, the concept of a fragmented or disarticulated time experience emphasizes the significance of time experience for intersubjective synchronization and social interaction. It suggests that due to the disintegration of basic self-coherence (Vogeley and Kupke, 2006; Fuchs, 2013), patients suffering from schizophrenia lose touch with their environment leading to an intersubjective
The Personal Experience of Time
Springer eBooks, 1977
The Personal experience of time. (Emotions, personality, and psychotherapy) "Most of the chapters in this volume had their origins as papers presented at the Eighth Annual Conference of the Center for Research in Cognition and Affect of the City University of New York •.• May 30, 1975." Includes bibliographies and index. 1. Time-Psychological aspects-Congresses. 2. Cognition-Congresses. 3. Child psychology-Congresses. 4. Psychological research-Congresses. I.
Review of Christian Tewes and Giovanni Stanghellini (eds.), Time and Body. Phenomenological and psychopathological approaches, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2021
Phenomenology and The Cognitive Sciences, 2022
Christian Tewes and Giovanni Stanghellini deliver a collective volume, dedicated to the honours of Thomas Fuchs. The contributors mainly belong to the phenomenological movement and provide different perspectives on the subject matter of psychopathology. Several common references, such as Fuchs, Parnas, and Sass, as well as motives, such as the experience of time or narrative self-consciousness, give the collection a unitary outline. The volume is well-edited and offers an adequate representation of the state of the art in phenomenological psychopathology thanks to diverse and reputable contributors. However, it remains to be shown how phenomenology can succeed in having a constructive and lasting influence on or at least controversial dialogue with the mainstream discourse of either cognitive psychology or psychiatry. Phenomenological Psychopathology is a field of research that is characterised by a certain ambivalence. On the one hand, the subject matter of the pathogenic or abnormal human experience and behaviour suggests affiliation with the discourse of psychiatry and clinical psychology. On the other hand, the contributions rely on phenomenological epistemology which-to some degree-deviates from what is commonly denominated as psychiatry and psychology, at least methodologically.
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Transdiagnostic Assessment of Temporal Experience (TATE) in Mental Disorders—Empirical Validation and Adaptation of a Structured Phenomenological Interview
Journal of Clinical Medicine, 2024
Abnormal experiences of time (ATEs) are an established object of research in phenomenological psychopathology. Objective: The purpose of this study was the first validation of the Transdiagnostic Assessment of Temporal Experience (TATE), a structured phenomenological interview concerning ATEs in individuals with diverse mental health conditions, and its adaptation for the Polish language. Methods: The research employed a mixed-method approach and consisted of several phases including (1) consensual translation; (2) construct and content validation by an expert panel; (3) direct feedback from patients with lived experiences of alcohol addiction, borderline personality, autism, and clinical depression; (4) an auditorium questionnaire with 98 respondents without mental health issues, who were both interviewed and gave qualitative feedback; and (5) a final expert panel and approval. Results: Following multiple stages of modification, the final TATE demonstrates strong internal consistency and validity (Cronbach’s α = 0.9), with strong correlations between the frequency, intensity, and impairment of various forms of ATEs as well as their rare occurrence among healthy participants. Conclusions: TATE represents a multidimensional and structured quantitative phenomenological approach to temporal experience for psychiatry and clinical psychology. This article presents the validated version of TATE for Polish alongside updated administration guidelines. It is now the state-of-the-art TATE that may be further adapted to other languages, including English.
Temporal Delusion 'Duality' Accounts of Time and Double Orientation to Reality in Depressive Psychosis
Journal of Consciousness Studies, 2018
This paper argues that duality accounts of time, as exemplified by Henri Bergson’s, Edmund Husserl’s and John McTaggart’s ideas, parallel the decomposition of temporal experience in depressive psychosis into objective and subjective dimensions of time. The paper also proposes to comprehend the full-fledged depressive temporal delusion, in whichthe subjective flow of time comes to a standstill via the idea of a double orientation toreality characteristic of schizophrenic delusions. In the depressive temporal delusion a person claims that time is not moving while simultaneously her cognitive orientation intemporal surroundings remains largely unaffected, and hence the double orientation. The juxtaposition of temporal experience in depression with the temporal disorientation indementia enables to situate the depressive delusion regarding the flow of time in the middleof a proposed scale of the disintegration of normal temporal experience
Varieties of Temporal Experience in Depression
Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 2012
People with depression often report alterations in their experience of time, a common complaint being that time has slowed down or stopped. In this paper, I argue that depression can involve a range of qualitatively different changes in the structure of temporal experience, some of which I proceed to describe. In addition, I suggest that current diagnostic categories such as ‘major depression’ are insensitive to the differences between these changes. I conclude by briefly considering whether the kinds of temporal experience associated with depression are specific to depression.
Intrinsic Temporality in Depression: Classical phenomenological psychiatry, affectivity and narrative
In Christian Tewes & Giovanna Stanghellini (eds.), Time and Body: Phenomenological and Psychopathological Approaches. Cambridge, UK: (forthcoming), 2020
Studies of depression indicate the existence of temporal abnormalities, particularly as related to the perspectival and agentive aspects of lived experience in persons who undergo depression. With reference to these anomalies, there is a long-standing view in phenomenological psychopathology, reinforced by empirical studies, that depression involves a disruption of “intrinsic temporality.” This view is widely incorporated into contemporary enactivist approaches to cognition, which link such a disruption to disorders involving affect, affordances, and narrative aspects of experience. We argue that classical phenomenological accounts of temporal abnormalities in depression do not warrant the supposition of a disruption to “intrinsic temporality,” and that this term itself is ambiguous. Instead, we understand depressive experience primarily in terms of affectivity, which does indeed feedback into the experience of lived time. Our view demonstrates a deeper consensus between phenomenological psychopathology and “4E” approaches, including work on both Gibsonian affordances and narrative, than is typically recognized.
The Experience of Time In Acute Psychosis and Schizophrenia
Contemporary Family Therapy, 1998
ABSTRACT: From the narrative point of view the plot of a story con-figures time. In psychosis, when experiences remain unnarrated, ex-perience being-in-time is also missing. Once experiences are given narrative form, they can be left behind as a part of ...
Time perception and time processing as an aspect of the therapeutic process
Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 1992
Lived Time and Psychopathology
6) WORD COUNT: 6577 (7) MICROSOFT WORD VERSION 97 SR-2 LIVED-TIME AND PSYCHOPATHOLOGY 2 LIVED-TIME AND PSYCHOPATHOLOGY ABSTRACT: Certain psychopathological experiences have as one of their structural aspects the experience of restructured temporality. The general argument is that one of the microstructures of experience, namely, temporality offers a particular perspective relevant to certain psychopathological experiences. Temporality is connected with the experience of the embodied human subject as being driven and directed towards the world in terms of bodily potentiality and capability. The dialectical relationship between the embodied human subject and the world results in a sense of lived-time (personal time), a lived-time that is intimately synchronised with the time of others (world-time).
Philosophical Psychology Manic temporality
Time-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 . 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.
Temporality and the Torments of Time
Immersion in time gives birth to consciousness, as well as conflict and torment. When human beings developed a sense of future, they also gained the ability to anticipate threats from nature or their fellow beings. They thereby created cultures that are bastions of survival, as well as places of poetry, art and religion where they could band together and reflect upon their common plight. The practice of psychoanalysis is in many ways a temporal process, a process of remembering, for owning and elaborating a past that gives us substance, thereby providing a basis for reflective consciousness. Stimulated by Freud's early writings, Lacan, Laplanche and their successors in particular have focussed extensively on time and psychoanalysis, and their views are a central point of this discussion. A substantial case study is offered that provides concrete examples of these perspectives. A multi-faceted view of temporality emerges, one that is more syncopated than linear or teleological. In conclusion, I will briefly discuss recent findings in the neuroscience of memory and 'time travel' that underpin contemporary psychoanalytic ideas in surprising ways. It is important to remember that acceptance of the contradictory nature of temporal experience can open space for increased freedom and playfulness.
The Phenomenology and Predictive Processing of Time in Depression
2020
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