title: Descriptive psychopathology, phenomenology, and the legacy of Karl Jaspers.
abstract: With his early publications (1910-1913), Karl Jaspers created a comprehensive methodological arsenal for psychiatry, thus laying the foundation for descriptive psychopathology. Following Edmund Husserl, the founder of philosophical phenomenology, Jaspers introduced phenomenology into psychopathology as "static understanding," ie, the unprejudiced intuitive reproduction (Vergegenwärtigung) and description of conscious phenomena. In a longitudinal perspective, "genetic understanding" based on empathy reveals how mental phenomena arise from mental phenomena. Severance in understanding of, or alienation from, meaningful connections is seen as indicating illness or transition of a natural development into a somatic process. Jaspers opted for philosophy early. After three terms of law, he switched to studying medicine, came to psychopathology after very little training in psychiatry; to psychology without ever studying psychology; and to a chair in philosophy without ever studying philosophy. In the fourth and subsequent editions of his General Psychopathology, imbued by his existential philosophy, Jaspers partly abandoned the descriptive method.
authors.affiliation: Schizophrenia Research Group, Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim Faculty of Medicine and University of Heidelberg, Germany.
authors.forename: Heinz
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Häfner
mesh_terms: D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005858:Germany; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000266:history / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology; D011570:Psychiatry / Q000266:history; D011599:Psychopathology / Q000266:history
keywords: Karl Jaspers; descriptive psychopathology; general psychopathology; hermeneutic interpretation; methodology in psychiatry; phenomenology; understanding psychology