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Psychiatric classification and subjective experience
Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article
Published
Associated organisation
| Journal publication date | 04/2012 |
|---|---|
| Journal | Emotion Review. |
| Journal number | 2 |
| Volume | 4 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| Pages | 197-202 |
| Original language | English |
Abstract
This article does not directly consider the feelings and emotions that occur in mental illness. Rather, it concerns a higher level methodological question: To what extent is an analysis of feelings and felt emotions of importance for psychiatric classification? Some claim that producing a phenomenologically informed descriptive psychopathology is a prerequisite for serious taxonomic endeavor. Others think that classifications of mental disorders may ignore subjective experience. A middle view holds that classification should at least map the contours of the phenomenology of mental illness. This article examines these options. I conclude that it is not true that phenomenology is a logical prerequisite for classification, nor even that classification should necessarily respect phenomenological boundaries, but that detailed phenomenological examination can sometimes inform classification.