Self-experience in Dementia
Rivista Internazionale di Filosofia e Psicologia September 11, 2015 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.4453/rifp.2015.0038 via DOAJ
Summary
Dementia impairs narrative self-understanding, but more basic levels of self-experience—pre-reflective self-awareness and an episodic sense of self—are preserved until the final stages of the illness. A phenomenological theory distinguishes three layers of self-experience: the minimal self, the episodic self, and the narrative self. In dementia, self-experience goes beyond the minimal self, involving forms of self-reference and episodic self-awareness.
Study at a glance
| Design | theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key finding | In dementia, self-experience goes beyond the minimal self, preserving pre-reflective self-awareness and an episodic sense of self despite impairment of narrative self-understanding. |
Abstract
This paper develops a phenomenological analysis of the disturbances of self-experience in dementia. After considering the lack of conceptual clarity regarding the notions of self and person in current research on dementia, we develop a phenomenological theory of the structure of self-experience in the first section. Within this complex structure, we distinguish between the basic level of pre-reflective self-awareness, the episodic sense of self, and the narrative constitution of the self. In the second section, we focus on dementia and argue that, despite the impairment of narrative self-understanding, more basic moments of self-experience are preserved. In accordance with the theory developed in the first part, we argue that, at least until the final stages of the illness, these self-experience in dementia goes beyond the pure minimal self, and rather entail forms of self-reference and an episodic sense of self.