Thinking in schizophrenia and the social phenomenology of thought insertion

Dados Bibliográficos

ID21591889
AutoresPablo López-Silva (0000-0001-7457-7724, School of Psychology, Universidad de Valparaíso, Valparaíso, Chile, autor correspondente)
Ano2025
Volume38
Fascículo1
Páginas17-48
Data de publicação2025-01-02
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoPhilosophical Psychology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0951-5089 • E-ISSN: 1465-394X
EditoraInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/09515089.2024.2334720
OpenAlexW4393202187
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas2
Referências citadas115

Patients suffering from delusions of thought insertion (TI) report that external agents of different nature have placed thoughts into their minds. The symptom involves distressing feelings of intromission and exposition, loss of mental privacy, diminished ego boundaries, and a – often neglected – peculiar “physicality”. A dominant approach within cognitive sciences characterizes TI as involving alterations in the experience of being the author of certain thoughts. For the advocates of this so-called Standard Approach to TI, the absence of a sense of agency for certain thoughts would lead to their externalization, this explaining the general structure of the clinical reports. In this paper, I problematize the phenomenological picture of everyday thoughts that the standard approach adopts when trying to make sense of TI. I claim that the standard approach neglects two more fundamental aspects of TI, namely the multimodal nature of thinking in psychosis and the deeply social dimension of the phenomenology of delusions in schizophrenia. After this, a broader descriptive phenomenological characterization of TI is provided. Finally, I establish some connections between the characterization of TI developed here and current research in social perception and clinical practice

Cognitive psychology · Cognitive science · Epistemology · Psychiatry · Psychoanalysis · Mental Health and Psychiatry · Neurology and Historical Studies · Philosophy · Psychology · Schizophrenia research and treatment