A Phenomenological Reappraisal of Dynamical Systems in Psychopathology.
Evan J Kyzar, George H Denfield, Jasper Feyaerts, Louis Sass, Barnaby Nelson
Psychopathology August 18, 2025 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.1159/000548025 via PubMed
Summary
Dynamical systems theory (DST) helps predict how mental illness progresses but faces challenges like vague symptom measures and weak theory. Integrating phenomenological methods—which focus on detailed descriptions of subjective experience—can strengthen DST. Phenomenology improves DST by precisely specifying core symptoms and explaining how they change over time. Using clinical high risk for psychosis as an example, the article shows how phenomenologically informed measures complement DST, and it examines the ipseity-disturbance model of psychosis development. Combining DST with phenomenology offers a better way to understand and predict psychiatric disorders and transitions in mental health.
Study at a glance
| Design | theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key finding | Integrating phenomenological methods into dynamical systems theory can improve the precision of symptom measurement and theoretical understanding of how psychopathological symptoms evolve over time. |
Abstract
Dynamical systems theory (DST) has recently gained traction as a framework to describe and predict the progression of psychopathology. However, a number of challenges to the application of DST to psychopathology have arisen, including the heterogeneity of symptom measures and the lack of theoretical underpinnings to describe the temporal unfolding of psychiatric illnesses. In this article, we aim to show how the integration of methods from phenomenology may strengthen the application of DST in psychopathology research. We explore how phenomenological psychopathology can improve DST-based investigations in two key ways: (1) by specifying the core symptoms of interest in psychopathological states in a more precise manner by focusing on subjective experiences, and (2) by deepening our theoretical understanding of how these symptoms evolve in severity over time. We show how incorporating phenomenologically informed measures of experience can complement DST using clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis as a test case, and we demonstrate the utility of combining phenomenologically informed theory and DST by examining the ipseity-disturbance model (IDM) of psychosis development. We close by offering a vision for the broader integration of DST and phenomenological research methods within psychopathological research. Phenomenological investigations can synergize with and advance the use of DST to better understand and predict psychiatric disorders and transitions in states of mental health.