A hundred years of phenomenological psychopathology

reflections on a worldview

Abstract

In 2022 we celebrate one hundred years of phenomenological psychopathology. This celebration does not have merely historical value, since phenomenology is again gaining momentum in the mental health agenda of the 21st century. To examine in retrospect the main postulates of phenomenological psychopathology is thus to reflect on the ways in which it may influence practical activities related to mental health. This article proposes a synthetic examination of the hundred years of phenomenological psychopathology from a perspective that understands it as a coherent worldview with its own philosophical and epistemological concepts that function as the intellectual root of its vitality. I argue throughout the article that the core of the phenomenological worldview can be identified in the scientific priority given to the structure of experience, with emphasis on the constitutive role of intersubjectivity. Next, I explore some pragmatic consequences of this philosophical core on psychiatry and clinical psychology.