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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Consciousness Research
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1383717
This article is part of the Research Topic Insights in Consciousness Research- Volume II View all 12 articles

Crisis of Objectivity: Using personalized networks to understand maladaptive sensemaking in a patient with psychotic, affective, and obsessive-compulsive symptoms

Provisionally accepted
  • 1 University Psychiatric Clinic, Ljubljana, Slovenia
  • 2 Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia
  • 3 New University, Ljubljana, Slovenia

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Psychiatric comorbidities have proven a consistent challenge. Recent approaches emphasize the need to move away from categorial descriptions of symptom clusters towards a dimensional view of mental disorders. From the perspective of phenomenological psychopathology, this shift is not enough, as a more detailed understanding of patients' lived experience is necessary as well. One phenomenology-informed approach suggests that we can better understand the nature of psychiatric disorders through personalized network models, a comprehensive description of a person's lifeworld in the form of salient nodes and the relationships between them. We present a detailed case study of a patient with multiple comorbidities, maladaptive coping mechanisms, and adverse childhood experiences. He was followed for a period of two years, during which we collected multiple streams of data, ranging from phenomenological interviews, neuropsychological assessments, language analysis, and semi-structured interviews (Examination of Anomalous Self Experience and Examination of Anomalous World Experience). We analytically constructed a personalized network model of his lifeworld. We identified one experiential categorythe crisis of objectivityas the core psychopathological theme of his lifeworld. It refers to his persistent mistrust towards any information that he obtains that he appraises as originating in his subjectivity. We can developmentally trace the crisis of objectivity to his adverse childhood experience, as well as him experiencing a psychotic episode in earnest. He developed various maladaptive coping mechanisms in order to compensate for his psychotic symptoms. Interestingly, we found correspondence between his subjective reports and other sources of data. Hernan exhibits difficulties in multiple Research Domain Criteria constructs. While we can say that social, sensorimotor, positive valence, and negative valence systems dysfunctions are likely associated with primary deficit (originating in his adverse childhood experience), his cognitive symptoms may be tied to his maladaptive coping mechanisms (although, they might be related to his primary disorder as well).

    Keywords: schizoaffective disorder, personalized network model, enactive psychiatry, Psychiatric comorbidity, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Qualitative phenomenology, RDoC

    Received: 07 Feb 2024; Accepted: 18 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Oblak, Kuclar, Horvat Golob, Holnthaner, Battelino, Skodlar and Bon. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Aleš Oblak, University Psychiatric Clinic, Ljubljana, Slovenia

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