Disturbed Experience of Time in Depression—Evidence from Content Analysis

Abstract

Disturbances in the experience of time have been a commonly reported feature of depressive disorders since the beginning of modern psychiatry and psychological research. However, qualitative research approaches to investigate the phenomenon are rarely used. We employed content analysis to investigate disturbances of time experience in Major Depressive Disorder. Our analysis from 25 participants showed that individuals with Major Depressive Disorder subjectively seem to have lost the ability to influence or change the present, resulting in an impersonal and blocked future. The present is rendered meaningless, the past unchangeably negative, and the passage of time turned into a dragging, inexorable, and viscous continuance. The overall,—possibly intersubjective—concept of time experience, remains largely intact, causing or adding to depressive mood and suffering. We elaborate on how these findings reflect previous theories on the experience of time in depression. This study might encourage future inquiries into both the phenomenal and neuroscientific foundation of time experience under psychopathological conditions.

Interrupted Time Experience in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Empirical Evidence from Content Analysis

“…This consideration demonstrates the interconnectedness of structure and passage of time into an ongoing structured directedness (Kupke, 2007;Kupke & Vogeley, 2009;Vogel et al, 2018a). Accordingly, it may be reasoned, that changes in the experience of the passage of time directly reflect changes of experience of the three dimensions of time (Vogel et al, 2018a;Vogel et al, 2018b). Vice versa, this observation explains the vulnerability of individuals with ASD to disturbances of their routines, a clinical feature commonly observed and described by the primary symptom of "restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities" (American Psychiatric Association 2013, p.50).…”

“…No time limits were given in order to guarantee data adequacy through proper data saturation (Sandelowski, M., 1995;Pope, C. et al 2000;Mason, M., 2010;Glaser B., & Strauss A., 2017). The TQ has been successfully used in two recent studies (Vogel et al, 2018a;Vogel et al, 2018b) and been demonstrated to sufficiently address both passage and structure of time with differential diagnostic resolution.…”

“…Retrospective scores from the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ), a 50-item questionnaire designed to assess autistic spectrum traits in the general population (Baron-Cohen et al, 2001) were available for n=17 included participants. Although its validity has not been sufficiently established for ASD (Cassidy et al, 2018), we administered the Beck-Depression-Inventory (BDI-II) (Hautzinger et al, 1995), a self-assessment multiple choice test to all participants in order to account for depressive symptoms potentially interfering with time experience (Thönes & Oberfeld, 2015;Vogel et al, 2018b). We administered a multiple choice vocabulary test for verbal intelligence (WST) (Schmidt & Metzler, 1992) to all participants in order to guarantee sufficient language proficiency and rule out potentially interfering speech development disorders.…”

The Temporality of Situated Cognition

“…As our second example, depressive episodes have been described by psychopathologists investigating the experience of time as being characterized by a “disturbance of becoming” or a “blocked future” ( Straus, 1928 ; von Gebsattel, 1954a , b ; Fuchs, 2013 ; Stanghellini et al, 2017 ; Vogel et al, 2018 ). Symptoms such as loss of interest, decreased affective reactivity, depressed mood, and emotionlessness, as well as psychomotor retardation, have been linked to this conceptual phenomenon ( Stanghellini et al, 2017 ; Vogel et al, 2018 ). Patients during major depressive episodes are thought to have lost the biologically anchored strive toward the future, rendering them unable to form emotional connections and to pursue or even form goals ( Straus, 1928 ).…”

Temporal preparation and short-term temporal memory in depression

“…Indeed, MDD patients often complain that subjective time is going by at a reduced pace compared with physical time (Gallagher, 2012;Ratcliffe, 2012;Vogel et al 2018). This perturbed time awareness has led to a systematic investigation of time 'perception' using quantitative methods requiring an explicit judgment about durations.…”