NDLI: Depression as existential feeling or de-situatedness? Distinguishing structure from mode in psychopathology

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Fernandez, Anthony Vincent
Copyright Year	2014
Abstract	In this paper I offer an alternative phenomenological account of depression as consisting of a degradation of the degree to which one is situated in and attuned to the world. This account contrasts with recent accounts of depression offered by Matthew Ratcliffe and others. Ratcliffe develops an account in which depression is understood in terms of deep moods, or existential feelings, such as guilt or hopelessness. Such moods are capable of limiting the kinds of significance and meaning that one can come across in the world. I argue that Ratcliffe’s account is unnecessarily constrained, making sense of the experience of depression by appealing only to changes in the mode of human existence. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s critique of traditional transcendental phenomenology, I show that many cases of severe psychiatric disorders are best understood as changes in the very structure of human existence, rather than changes in the mode of human existence. Working in this vein, I argue that we can make better sense of many first-person reports of the experience of depression by appealing to a loss or degradation of the degree to which one is situated in and attuned to the world, rather than attempting to make sense of depression as a particular mode of being situated and attuned. Finally, I argue that drawing distinctions between disorders of structure and mode will allow us to improve upon the currently heterogeneous categories of disorder offered in the DSM-5.
Starting Page	595
Ending Page	612
Page Count	18
File Format	PDF
ISSN	15687759
Journal	Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences
Volume Number	13
Issue Number	4
e-ISSN	15728676
Language	English
Publisher	Springer Netherlands
Publisher Date	2014-06-19
Publisher Place	Dordrecht
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Subject Keyword	Phenomenology Psychiatry Depression Matthew Ratcliffe Maurice Merleau-Ponty Martin Heidegger Interdisciplinary Studies Philosophy of Mind Artificial Intelligence (incl. Robotics)
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Philosophy Cognitive Neuroscience

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