This introductory chapter discusses the primary focus of psychiatry and how phenomenological psychopathology in particular serves as the basis for psychiatry. It argues that psychiatry is not only a biological discipline. It must maintain an intense concern with the quality of patients’ experiences by focusing on the “psyche” and not just the brain, which is of interest to psychiatry only insofar as it helps one better understand the relevant psychic phenomena. Thus, one must investigate the relationship between these subjective experiences, the brain, and the way we classify psychiatric disorders. In this light, phenomenological psychopathology becomes increasingly central to these discussions. At present, the psychiatric study of psyche and subjectivity is defined mainly by changes in experience and behavior. Therefore, psychopathology, the discipline that assesses and makes sense of the suffering psyche, is at the heart of psychiatry.

The recognition of the patient's resources is necessary for effective treatment, as recovery requires not only the reduction of full-blown symptoms but also a change in the patient's attitude with respect to her basic abnormal phenomena. The latter involves the person's own effort to make sense of and cope with her vulnerability.

In this paper, we consider the nature of two aspects of human emotional experience—moods and affects—in their relation to the concept of the person. We argue for the importance of the concept of the person in an approach to human emotional experience. This paper differentiates between the concepts of minimal self, extended self, and person. Furthermore, it offers a phenomenological proposal to understand the feeling dimension of moods and affects as critical for the differentiation of human emotional experience, and hence an understanding of that experience. By way of conclusion, we opt for a narrative approach to the question of the normative dimension of emotional experience to clarify the intricate relationship between mood and personhood.