The first main research objective…

… is to design a conceptual framework capable of integrating diverse descriptions of what it is like to recover from “Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders”* (SSDs), what processes are in play in recovery and what are their conditions of possibility.

The second main objective…

… aims at the elaboration of a non-normative phenomenological description of the genesis of ipseity capable of accounting for the dynamic experience of the self in ordinary and pathological conditions. This description should integrate different layers of selfhood (e.g. minimal, embodied, narrative) in a multilayered, genetic account of ipseity.

The main research hypothesis …

… is that the processes of recovery in SSDs and the genesis of ipseity show overlapping experiential structures.

This hypothesis entails the following points:

The phenomenological framework allows us to focus on the experiential dimension of recovery in a non-normative phenomenological understanding.

Insofar as disorders of the self are recognized as an alteration of the experience of people with SSDs, we hypothesize that recovery leads to a reorganization of self-experience that we will have to explore.

Phenomenology, as an epistemological tool, allows for a dialogue between a descriptive level (phenomenological analysis), disciplines such as psychiatry, psychopathology, and ethnography and the experience of the people living with SSDs.

Expected results
To create an integrative model of experiential recovery in SSDs based on a discussion between mental health services users, mental health professionals and actors in the social field.

To identify factors (individual, collective and/or institutional) that may be levers for a person's recovery and that may be the subject of targeted public health policy.

To vitalize the translational dialogue between clinical sciences, social sciences and theoretical philosophy, particularly in the growing field of recovery-oriented practices.

To participate in the empowerment of mental health services users in psychiatry research and in the creation of scientific and philosophical narratives about them

To structure an interdisciplinary European pole of excellence in research on recovery-oriented practice in schizophrenia*.