PSYCHOPATHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY IN RELATION TO THE EXISTENCE OF HUMAN BEING

The analysis of mental disorders necessarily requires careful and multilayered reflection. Psychiatry is indeed focused on complex phenomena and symptoms that can be only partly traced back to merely quantitative objectifiable data. This is the reason why we witness a growing methodological and conceptual “mutual enlightenment” between philosophy and psychiatry. Whereas philosophy offers notions that can help to take into account also the qualitative aspects and the lived experiences of pathologies, clinical psychiatry seems to represent one of the most relevant practical fields for philosophy to test its explan- atory capacity in relation to its many important issues. The history of phenomenological psychopathology, in particular, shows that philosophers have demonstrated a keen interest in the practical consequences of these issues in the field of clinical psychopathology.