{"id":39927,"date":"2013-09-13T10:33:01","date_gmt":"2013-09-13T14:33:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=39927"},"modified":"2013-09-13T10:33:01","modified_gmt":"2013-09-13T14:33:01","slug":"welcome-relief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2013\/09\/13\/welcome-relief\/","title":{"rendered":"welcome relief…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Edmund Husserl<\/a> was a German philosopher whose work separates the wheat from the chaff, and I’m definitely the latter, knowing next to nothing. I once knew a philosophy professor who was an expert, but all I ever heard him talk about was Husserl’s life and relationship with his assistant, Martin Heidegger<\/a>. One more story – my medical school friend was writing his thesis on Husserl in graduate school. Late one night, while reading Husserl, he said that he "sort of got it." He left graduate school that night and drove from Durham NC to Memphis TN  where he registered for the premed courses he lacked. I’ve never heard him talk about philosophy in the half century I’ve known him since. Having thus established my non-credentials, a few days ago, I chased a Twitter link from Neuroskeptic that lead me to the article below from Heidelberg Germany – from the Departments of "Phenomenological Psychopathology and Psychotherapy" and the "Structural Neuroimaging Group" [an unusual grouping, to say the least]. If you watched the Ted Talk by Eleanor Longden<\/font><\/strong> [voices…<\/a>] with as much wonder as I did, you might have the stomach to then wade through this article [way more than once] to follow the authors’ thinking, and the reason for bringing up Husserl will be a bit clearer:<\/div>\n
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Disturbance of Intentionality: A Phenomenological Study of Body-Affecting First-Rank Symptoms in Schizophrenia<\/a><\/div>\n
by Dusan Hirjak, Thiemo Breyer, Philipp Arthur Thomann, and Thomas Fuchs<\/div>\n
PLoS ONE.<\/font><\/strong> 2013 8[9]: e73662. doi:10.1371\/journal.pone.0073662.<\/div>\n
[full text on-line<\/a>]<\/div>\n

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Objectives<\/font><\/strong><\/u>: In 1950, Kurt Schneider proposed that a considerable number of schizophrenia patients develop first-rank symptoms [FRS]. In such cases, patients report made experiences, replaced control of will, thought insertion, broadcast or withdrawal and delusional perception, respectively. Although a number of recent studies tend to explain FRS in terms of neurobiological and neuropsychological processes, the origin of these symptoms still remains unknown. In this paper, we explore the subjective experience of patients with the following two FRS: [1] "made" impulses and [2] “made" volitional acts.<\/div>\n
Method<\/font><\/strong><\/u>: The method applied for the study of two FRS consists first in the overview of psychiatric and philosophical literature and second in the further investigation of subjective experience in patients with FRS. Psychopathological and phenomenological aspects of FRS are discussed by means of patient cases.<\/div>\n
Results<\/font><\/strong><\/u>: We discovered a profound transformation of intentionality and agency in schizophrenia patients with body-affecting FRS. This concept offers an insight into the interrelatedness between particular FRS.<\/div>\n
Conclusion<\/font><\/strong><\/u>: We propose that the subjective experience of schizophrenia patients with body-affecting FRS is rooted in the disturbance of intentionality and diminished sense of agency. This theoretical account of body-affecting FRS will open up new directions in both phenomenological and neurobiological psychiatric research.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Kurt Schneider<\/a> was a German psychiatrist in Heidelberg who focused on psychiatric diagnosis. While less well known than people like Emil Kraepelin, Sigmund Freud, Karl Jaspers, or Eugen Bleuler – his contributions were sizable and one was particularly impressive to me – his First Rank Symptoms of Schizophrenia. While they never made it into an official diagnostic manual, they made it into mine. They were:<\/div>\n