The Experience of God: Portraits in the Phenomenological Psychopathology of Schizophrenia (American University Studies)

In this study of religious experience during schizophrenic psychosis, the relevant literature is critiqued, a research method delineated, and the findings presented in an hierarchy of factual data which culminates in a kind of phenomenological description entitled a «portrait». Along with the experience of God, the main areas of investigation are the patient's lived body and its reflection in an hallucinated, mythological world. This research is allied with Karl Jaspers's verstehende psychology, Ludwig Binswanger's Daseinsanalyse, and the existential concern with human encounter. While its emphasis on the lived body is based on Erwin Straus's thought, its mythological extension of the body's meaning is associated with analytical and archetypal psychology.