Phenomenology of psychiatric emergencies.
Frontiers in psychology January 1, 2023 Stefano Goretti, Cecilia Maria Esposito, Gilberto Di Petta 5 citations
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.