The initial phases of psychosis often involve transformations in subjective experience, which have been closely examined in phenomenological psychiatry. These experiences now play a significant role in certain neurocognitive models of delusions in schizophrenia. The paper proposes approaching these inaugural psychotic experiences as a privileged interface between phenomenological descriptions of being-in-the-world, hypotheses about possible perceptual alterations underlying these experiences, and the clinical and psychodynamic dimension of a specific mode of wavering or loss of contact with reality.
The article examines psychiatrist Henri Grivois's concept of nascent psychosis, which describes how the first moments of psychosis involve a breakdown in the tacit, prereflexive mechanisms of mimesis and interpersonal attunement. Grivois identifies experiences of concernment and centrality—a disruption in the embodied, gestural foundations of intersubjectivity. By comparing Grivois's approach with phenomenological accounts, the article argues that centrality challenges the limits of verbal descriptions of psychotic experience and suggests therapeutic methods that emphasize bodily anchoring and attunement between patient and therapist.