Phenomenology and psychiatry: Shaping the diagnosis

Abstract

Phenomenology is a philosophical discipline aiming to analyze and examine subjective experience. Since the formulation of the basic principles of this tradition, phenomenology has been closely associated with psychiatry. Bearing that the person with psychopathological experiences is the object of psychiatry, phenomenology can provide an adequate framework for understanding such experiences. In this paper, we show how phenomenology can conceptually and methodologically improve diagnosis in psychiatry. In clinical work, phenomenology can be applied in the process of diagnostic reasoning by giving significant nuance and depth to psychopathology within the frame of psychiatric diagnosis. Additionally, phenomenology can add to psychiatric interviews, especially by pointing out the importance of the psychopathological gestalt and eidetic reduction by way of disengaging from different prejudices that might be present in the interviewer.