Schizophrenia and the experience of intersubjectivity as threat

Paul Lysaker

Jason K. Johannesen

John Lysaker

pp. 335-352

in: Phenomenology and the cognitive sciences 4 (3), 2005.

Abstract

Many with schizophrenia find social interactions a profound and terrifying threat to their sense of self. To better understand this we draw upon dialogical models of the self that suggest that those with schizophrenia have difficulty sustaining dialogues among diverse aspects of self. Because interpersonal exchanges solicit and evoke movement among diverse aspects of self, many with schizophrenia may consequently find those exchanges overwhelming, resulting in despair, the sensation of fusion with another, and/or self-dissolution. In short, compromised dialogical capacities may be a contributing factor to social dysfunction in schizophrenia.