Kinesthesia and Temporal Experience: On the 'Knitting and Unknitting' Process of Bodily Subjectivity in Schizophrenia

Cognitive biases as an adaptive strategy in autism and schizophrenia spectrum: the compensation perspective on neurodiversity

This article presents a novel theoretical perspective on the role of cognitive biases within the autism and schizophrenia spectrum by integrating the evolutionary and computational approaches. Against the background of neurodiversity, cognitive biases are presented as primary adaptive strategies, while the compensation of their shortcomings is a potential cognitive advantage. The article delineates how certain subtypes of autism represent a unique cognitive strategy to manage cognitive biases at the expense of rapid and frugal heuristics. In contrast, certain subtypes of schizophrenia emerge as distinctive cognitive strategies devised to navigate social interactions, albeit with a propensity for overdetecting intentional behaviors. In conclusion, the paper emphasizes that while extreme manifestations might appear non-functional, they are merely endpoints of a broader, primarily functional spectrum of cognitive strategies. The central argument hinges on the premise that cognitive biases in both autism and schizophrenia spectrums serve as compensatory mechanisms tailored for specific ecological niches.

The rhythm of chemotherapy and the felt experience of time: a front-loaded phenomenological retrospective cohort study

It is well-known that chemotherapy brings about various adverse physical effects such as fatigue, nausea, or vomiting, and that it lowers mental well-being. It is less known that it desynchronizes patients with social environment. This study explores the temporal aspects and challenges of chemotherapy. Three groups equal in size and distinguished according to weekly, biweekly, and triweekly treatment schemes, each independently representative in terms of sex and age of the cancer population (total N = 440) were compared. The study found that chemotherapy sessions, regardless of their frequency, patients' age, and the overall length of treatment, have a very large effect on changing the felt pace of time from flying to dragging (Cohen's d = 1.6655). Most patients pay more attention to the passing of time than before treatment (59.3%), which has to do with the disease (77.4%). They also experience the loss of control over time, which they subsequently attempt to regain. The patients' actual activities before and after chemotherapy, however, are mostly the same. All these aspects create a unique 'chemo-rhythm', in which the significance of the type of cancer and demographic variables is negligible, and the mere rhythmic nature of treatment plays a central role. In conclusion, patients find the 'chemo-rhythm' stressful, unpleasant and difficult to control. It is vital to prepare them for it and help to reduce its adverse effects.

Advances in the Diagnosis and Management of Psychosis

Psychosis research in the contemporary sense of scientific inquiry may be traced as far as the formulation of the "unitary psychosis" concept, or Einheitpsychose, which is usually attributed to Wilhelm Griesinger, Ernst von Zeller, and Heinrich Neumann [...].

Psychotic disorders of space and time - A contribution of Erwin W. Straus

This paper presents and discusses a manuscript by one of the core founders of phenomenological psychopathology, Erwin W. Straus, concerning psychotic disorders of space and time (see attached Supplementary material). Written in June 1946, the manuscript is published for the first time as supplementary material to this paper. It is a clinical case-study of a patient with psychotic depression from Henry Phipps Clinic. It contains themes known from both Straus' earlier and later work on lived time and mental illness, in particular a critique of physicalism in psychology, a vindication of primary sensing, a description of the spatiotemporal unity of lived experience, and the notion of temporal becoming. However, it is the only work by Straus that explores in such detail a patient's case and shows how the lived experience is spatiotemporally structured and intrinsically related to affectivity, embodiment, and action. The manuscript is yet another piece of evidence of Straus' significance in developing the field of phenomenological psychiatry in both Germany and the United States.