Psychopathology
January 1, 2023
Cassandre Bois, István Fazakas, Juliette Salles et al.
12 citations
Borderline personality disorder involves a fragmentation of narrative identity, a widely shared view that has been challenged by alternative perspectives emphasizing agency. This article contributes to that debate using a phenomenological approach. It reviews the narrative interpretation, justifies a stratified model of the self based on phenomenology, and draws on László Tengelyi's three layers of self—self-institution, self-formation, and minimal self—to integrate competing concepts from Fuchs, Schmidt, Gold, Kyratsous, and Zahavi. The final section reconfigures the identity-related experiences and manifestations of BPD through this layered phenomenological lens.
Psychopathology
January 1, 2020
Tudi Gozé, István Fazakas
12 citations
Anomalies of imagination are common and disabling in schizophrenia spectrum disorders but have been neglected in psychopathology due to the lack of a conceptual framework. Recently, the link between minimal self disorders and pathology of imagination has been emphasized. This article discusses that initiative by drawing on the recent imaginary turn in phenomenological research, which is active in philosophy but rarely applied in psychopathology or cognitive sciences. The authors examine psychopathological literature on anomalous fantasy and imagination, provide an overview of the phenomenological imaginary turn, and explore how fantasy and imagination are involved in embodiment and identity. They also consider implications for psychotherapy and recovery.
Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences
April 1, 2026
István Fazakas, Mathilde Bois, Tudi Gozé
7 citations
Selfhood, even at its most basic level, has a bodily thickness that can be altered in schizophrenia. Drawing on Sartre's concept of coenesthesia—the translucent material of consciousness—and historical research, the authors argue that the minimal self is not a bare point but an embodied, elemental feeling. This phenomenological materiality, or bodily element of ipseity, helps explain anomalies of self-experience in schizophrenia spectrum disorders without reducing selfhood so drastically that it cannot account for experiential changes.