Empirical Phenomenological Psychopathology: Aims, Methods, and Explanatory Relevance

An important feature of contemporary phenomenological psychopathology is the development of explanatory accounts, constructed at the level of first-person experience, for why certain phenomena appear in a psychiatric condition. Termed phenomenological explanation, this approach to explanation is intended to uniquely contribute to diagnostic classification and etiology. Despite its promise for psychiatry, there has yet to be sustained dialogue on the question of how phenomenological explanations can be developed, evaluated, and refined. This paper begins this project.

We first explicitly articulate the philosophical commitments of phenomenological psychopathology. Focusing on the self-disorder model, we show how phenomenological psychopathology operates according to these commitments in proposing explanatory accounts that are in service of two disciplinary aims: typification (i.e., diagnostic classification) and pathogenetic insight (explaining how core symptoms of a condition emerge). We then turn our attention to the three research paradigms typically employed in phenomenological psychopathology: the clinical case study, quantitative methods, and qualitative methods. Here, we demonstrate how each paradigm has strengths and limitations in adhering to the commitments and aims of phenomenological psychopathology.

The practice of phenomenological explanation is best understood as an integrative process in which awareness of the strengths and limitations of distinct research paradigms shapes study design, the interpretation of results, and decisions about future empirical projects.