Disturbed temporalities. Insights from phenomenological psychiatry

Abstract

The article gives an account of various disturbed experiences of time from a phenomenological perspective. The author distinguishes three levels for addressing variations of temporal experience—the temporal structure of consciousness itself, the actual experience of time, and the sociopolitical temporality. He excludes the psychological type of argument, exemplified by Philip Zimbardo’s Time Perspective Inventory and concentrates on disorders in which the temporal structure of consciousness is itself altered. The clinical examples of disturbed temporalities being investigated come from studies of two influential, 20th-century German phenomenological psychiatrists: Ludwig Binswanger (1881–1966) and Viktor Emil von Gebsattel (1883–1974) and include mania, phobia, schizophrenia, depression, and addiction. Philosophical examples come from Hannah Arendt’s “The Life of the Mind.” It is argued that not all disturbed experiences of time related to mental disorders are pathological, but that we can distinguish such experiences from their less severe varieties by appealing to the value-free norm of primordial temporality. A psychotic experience of internal time of the self coming to a standstill exemplifies such a pathological situation, in which temporal experience is not only altered, but ruined.

Lived Time Disturbances of Drug Addiction Therapy Newcomers. A Qualitative, Field Phenomenology Case Study at Monar-Markot Center in Poland

“…Even though this questionnaire could not give an account of phenomenologically understood lived time (Moskalewicz 2015), it was considered valuable as it aided the semi-structuring of the final interviews. Information regarding particular clients, especially if they deviated heavily from the population average in a given time orientation, was one of the main focal points in the interviews.…”

Illness and two meanings of phenomenology

“…The philosophical debate on temporality usually consists in framing temporality as constitutive for the (human) experience and in discussing the relation between past, present, and future; from this standpoint, temporality cannot be reduced to a physicalist interpretation of time. In phenomenological terms, the temporal structure of consciousness makes it possible to experience anything in time . Moreover, through their thoughts and actions, human beings actively constitute time.…”

“…Moreover, through their thoughts and actions, human beings actively constitute time. They do not merely live in objective time, but create their lived time, which is filled with determinate or indeterminate relationships between its different dimensions . It is therefore essential for their identity and for their well‐being to actively and creatively engage with their pasts, presents, and futures.…”

“…There are several ways in which they can be articulated in the context of recent research on conceptualizing illness and disease in a phenomenological manner. Moskalewicz speaks, for example, of three “levels” on which the research on time and pathology can be pursued: the (temporal) structure of consciousness, the (psychological) experience of time, and the sociopolitical temporality . For Fuchs, the concepts of implicit and explicit temporality, referring to time as pre‐reflectively lived, respectively consciously experienced, are essential in understanding the distorted (psychopathological) temporality .…”

Toward a unified view of time: Erwin W. Straus’ phenomenological psychopathology of temporal experience

“…Is it not that in a boundary, pathological situation, one more severe than a modification of temporal becoming, the passage of existential time itself is lost? One might then find oneself Bfrozen^in time despite the fact that clock time is still passing (Moskalewicz 2016). Moreover, one can still be aware of the passage of clock time, yet one's own self exists in a temporal void or even comes to a standstill.…”