Abnormal self-experiences are common in major depression but are not included in current diagnostic manuals, which limits understanding and treatment. Through qualitative interviews analyzed with the Consensual Qualitative Research method, three categories of abnormal self-experience emerged: an inability to project oneself forward, not recognizing one's self, and losing control over one's self. The core of depressive experience appears to be an inability to recognize otherness as part of oneself, leading to specific symptoms of depersonalization that differ from those in schizophrenia. Narrative identity is central to the development and maintenance of depression.
Psychiatric urgency involves serious mental suffering and behavioral change requiring prompt treatment, while emergency is life-threatening. Although phenomenological psychopathology has neglected this area, the phenomenological method is essential for clinical management. The manuscript explores the phenomenological perspective of psychiatric emergencies, emphasizing the centrality of the encounter between clinician and patient as two subjects, not just doctor and patient. The affective space of intersubjectivity and intercorporeality enables transformative understanding. The emergency room atmosphere—full of haste, anxiety, and expectation—hinders authentic encounter, which must be recovered for diagnosis and therapy. Clinicians should immerse themselves in the patient's life-world, using the phenomenological method to grasp the crisis's meaning and help re-inscribe it within the patient's history.