The study of subjective experience as a scientific task for psychopathology

Abstract: The debate on the scientific validity of mental disorders and psychopathological phenomena is considered in the broader context of the paradigmatic crisis occurring in nowadays psychiatry. The author comments a work of Stoyanov, Machamer and Schaffner appeared on this journal. There is a complete agreement on two basic assertions: a) practically, clinical interviews, structured interviews based on the DSM and psychometric scales are different but overlapping instruments exploring the same phenomenal level; b) psychiatry is not a unitary science but a multifaceted activity based on different domains of knowledge. However, the related assumption that instruments exploring psychopathological phenomenology are not enough scientific because they are too much subjective is questioned. At the epistemological level, it is shown that subjectivity is everywhere since all scientific observations are theory-laden. Nevertheless, it is suggested that this state of affairs does not necessarily lead to methodological anarchism and is compatible with a scientific stance. At the psychopathological level, it is shown that both mental disorders and symptoms are hermeneutical constructions and that Jaspers introduced phenomenology as the proper scientific equipment for the scientific study of subjective experience. In conclusion it is suggested that psychopathological phenomenology can be renewed to meet the present-day scientific needs, but psychopathology cannot work without the awareness that its scientific descriptions are always based on a semiotic activity.
The entire article can be freely downloaded at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2753.2011.01794.x/full