The Disentanglement of the Body-Consciousness-World Intertwining: A Phenomenology of Severe Mental Illness.
Nursing inquiry July 1, 2026 Rui Gomes, Patrícia Silva-Pereira
Severe mental illness involves a radical alteration in the structure of being-in-the-world, not merely a set of symptoms. Through phenomenological interviews with 12 clinically stabilized adults, the illness emerges as a disentanglement of body, consciousness, and world. This manifests as a violent rupture of the intentional arc: the body loses its transparency, the world its familiarity, leading to withdrawal, corporeal doubt, blackouts of consciousness, and fractured intercorporeality. The findings call for a humanistic nursing that transcends symptom management, embracing an ethics of welcoming that validates lived experience and promotes new possibilities of being-in-the-world.