The Contribution of Phenomenology to the Assessment of Severe Non-Psychotic Forms of Psychopathological Conditions in Transitional Age Youth: Two Case Studies.
Psychopathology January 1, 2025 Matteo Ballabio, Giovanni Stanghellini
Adolescents with severe mental health problems that do not clearly fit any single diagnosis often receive labels such as borderline personality disorder, affective disorders, or ADHD based on behavioral symptoms like social withdrawal, aggression, or self-harm. These diagnoses miss the inner experience of suffering. Using a phenomenological approach, this paper presents two case studies of transitional age youth and additional clinical material. Concepts of self-disorders and anomalies of common sense—originally developed to characterize schizophrenia, especially non-delusional forms—are applied to complement standard diagnostic assessments. The authors propose that these constructs help clarify the psychopathological core of severe cases in transitional age youth and offer tentative criteria to distinguish such phenomena from schizophrenia.