Mapping Epoché in Mental Health: A Scoping Review Protocol

Objective: ​​The objective of this scoping review is to map how epoché has been conceptualized within the clinical assessment tools and research methods used in psychiatry and psychology to evaluate the lived experience of individuals suffering first-hand from mental disorders or other clinically significant conditions. Introduction: Phenomenology emerged in response to diagnostic frameworks that often obscure the subjective dimensions of mental illness. Epoché—the methodological suspension of presuppositions to gain access to lived experience—is central to phenomenological inquiry, yet its definition and operationalization in mental health tools and methods remain fragmented and inconsistently articulated. Empirical studies frequently use phenomenologically grounded instruments to investigate first-person psychopathological experience, but the conceptualization of epoché is often elaborated only in the methodological sources they cite. No existing review has systematically mapped how epoché is conceptualized and translated into procedures within these methodological frameworks, nor how such conceptualizations relate to their application in empirical psychopathology research. Inclusion criteria: The review will proceed in two stages. Stage 1 will include peer-reviewed empirical studies exploring the lived experience of psychopathological phenomena in individuals with mental disorders or clinically significant conditions using phenomenological tools or methods. Stage 2 will comprise methodological publications identified through backward citation tracking from Stage 1 that explicitly define and/or operationalize epoché or related suspensive attitudes. Only English-language publications will be included. Methods: A three-phase search will be conducted in MEDLINE, Scopus, and Web of Science (1900–2025). Two reviewers will independently screen records, extract data from Stage 2 sources, and cross-reference them with Stage 1 studies to link methodological conceptualizations of epoché with the psychopathological phenomena to which each technique has been applied. Data will be synthesized descriptively and presented narratively and in tables.