Madness, modernism, and interpretation

a conversation with Louis Sass

Louis Sass

pp. 49-88

in: Heather Macdonald, David Goodman, Brian Becker (eds), Dialogues at the edge of American psychological discourse, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017

Abstract

In this conversation, Louis Sass discusses phenomenological and hermeneutic themes as they have applied to his work with psychopathology, specifically schizophrenia. Sass has consistently argued for a phenomenological approach to the study of self, subjectivity, and mental disorder. He asserts that these phenomenological approaches to psychopathology can be explanatory as well as descriptive.In the interview Sass describes the itinerary of his own career in psychology. He also discusses various theoretical issues, which include the following: the importance of Heidegger's emphasis on the ontological dimension of human experience; the self-contradictions of postmodernist skepticism and also the valuable contributions of various poststructuralist perspectives; hermeneutics and relativism; the relevance of Wittgenstein for understanding abnormal states of mind; how to escape the dispiriting effects of exaggerated irony and self-consciousness in contemporary culture; the relationship of phenomenology to neurobiology; the ipseity-disturbance or self-disorder model of schizophrenia.

Cited authors

Heidegger Martin

Wittgenstein Ludwig

Sass Louis