Mental Illness as an (Un)Limited Experience of Intersubjectivity
Human Studies December 2, 2024 Cătălina Condruz 1 citation
Mental illness is often seen as a dissolution of the ego, confronting the psychotic with frightening limits of perception, understanding, vulnerability, and intersubjectivity. This paper examines mental illness phenomenologically as both a limited and an unlimited experience of intersubjectivity. On one hand, it limits access to the Other; on the other, it opens a new world that can be transposed into artistic expression. Drawing on clinical studies by Marguerite Sechehaye and Rosemarie Samaritter, the author identifies three disturbed experiential layers in schizophrenia: the affective, the symbolic, and the kinesthetic, where spatial presence and body movements shape the sense of self. The paper then explores art and schizophrenia to consider how psychotics transcend experiential limits.