Disturbances of Imagination in Psychopathology and Its Promises for Recovery

Abstract: Despite its century-old history, phenomenological psychiatry has mostly focused on exploring mental illness, only rarely addressing the possibility of getting better or restoring a life that is felt as worth living. Such a task appears today even more urgent in the light of the developments related to the recovery movement and recovery studies. This paper proposes to contribute to this task by investigating the resources of phantasy and imagination for the creative reinvention of oneself, particularly in situations where not only identity but also the pre-reflective experience of the continuity of being is destabilized. On the theoretical level, we propose to dig out the conditions of possibility of creative imagination, which is at the basis of the invention of self-narratives. We argue that the creativity necessary for the search for the self is dependent on an affective background of trust. To put this thesis in perspective, we draw on a qualitative study we conducted with people recovering from schizophrenia.