Elements for a Phenomenology of Cultures: Cultural Existentials and the Dialectical Experiential Matrix.
Psychopathology February 2, 2026 Riccardo Poggioli, Giovanni Stanghellini
A critical expansion of phenomenological psychopathology from the individual to the collective dimension is proposed. To describe collective life and its link to individual psychology, the paper shifts focus from society to culture—a transversal symbolic system extending beyond social groups—and introduces "cultural existentials" (time, space, body, etc.) as a priori conditions of experience. These are integrated into a Dialectical Experiential Matrix (DEM) that frames the patient's experience as a dynamic interplay between individual freedom and cultural influence. An analysis of the convergence between pornographic culture and the homo œconomicus type demonstrates how cultural existentials provide a model for narcissistic vulnerabilities and dysregulations of alterity, offering a diagnostic device for clinicians.