title: Introspection and schizophrenia: a comparative investigation of anomalous self experiences.
abstract: This paper offers a comparative investigation of anomalous self-experiences common in schizophrenia (defined in Examination of Anomalous Self Experiences (EASE) instrument) and those of normal individuals in an intensely introspective orientation (early 20th-century "introspectionist" psychology). The latter represent a relatively pure manifestation of certain forms of exaggerated self-consciousness ("hyperreflexivity"), one facet of the disturbance of core- or minimal-self ("ipseity" disturbance) postulated as central in schizophrenia. Significant similarities with schizophrenia-like experience were found but important differences also emerged. Affinities included feelings of passivity, fading of self or world, and alienation from thoughts, feelings, or lived-body. Differences involved confusion between self and world and severe dislocation or erosion of first-person perspective, qualities unique to schizophrenia. The purpose is threefold: 1, place the putatively schizophrenic experiences of self-disorder in a broader, comparative context; 2, evaluate hypotheses concerning core processes in schizophrenia; 3, orient investigation of possible pathogenetic pathways as well as psychotherapeutic interventions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychology, Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology, Rutgers University, 152 Frelinghuysen Road, Piscataway, NJ 08854-8020, United States. Electronic address: lsass@rci.rutgers.edu.
authors.forename: Louis
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Sass
authors.forename: Elizabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Pienkos
authors.forename: Barnaby
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Nelson
mesh_terms: D003861:Depersonalization / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D012559:Schizophrenia; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D012649:Self Concept
keywords: Anomalous self-experience; Depersonalization; Hyperreflexivity; Introspectionism; Ipseity; Psychiatric phenomenology; Psychosis; Schizophrenia