Phenomenology, Neuroscience and Clinical Practice. Transdisciplinary Experiences (Springer book)

Over the past decades, phenomenology has captured increasing attention within psychology and psychiatry. Drawing on classical phenomenological texts while engaging with contemporary developments in cognitive science and enactivism, researchers have built a robust body of work on applying phenomenological insights to clinical settings.

This volume edited by Francesca Brencio, Phenomenology, Neuroscience and Clinical Practice.Transdisciplinary Experiences (Springer Nature, Cham, 2024, ISBN: 9783031662638) addresses a critical question: how can we effectively deploy phenomenological method across disciplinary boundaries?

This book emerged from a series of seminars held during the 2020–2021 academic year as part of PhenoLab: A Theoretical Laboratory in Phenomenology and Mental Health, which Dr. Brencio founded and leads since 2019. Through these pages, readers will encounter thoughtful reflections and clinical examples exploring fundamental aspects of human existence, such as emotional life, embodiment, thought, and perception. At its core, this work seeks to foster meaningful dialogue between philosophers and mental health professionals. Such collaboration is essential to how we conceptualize and address mental health conditions.

Rethinking the mind
The foundation for this interdisciplinary conversation has been laid by three decades of research in cognitive science and psychiatry, which has challenged traditional Cartesian and mechanistic understandings of mind. The reductionist view - that mind can be entirely explained mainly by brain function - continues to shape mental health practice in significant ways. This materialistic approach dominated biological psychiatry from the late nineteenth through early twentieth centuries, treating mental disorders primarily as brain diseases. However, pioneering research has demonstrated that our minds - encompassing our inner experiences, emotions, memories, and behaviours - cannot be reduced to localized brain functions.

Vulnerability as resource
In mental health care, we must recognize a person's inherent vulnerability not as a limitation to eliminate, but as a transformative resource within the healing process. This requires a dialectical approach that reframes vulnerability's nature and potential entirely.
Consider the distinction between diagnosis and possibility, the remarkable capacity each person has to embody their existence in varied ways, often achieving high levels of functioning. This dimension receives insufficient attention in mental health discourse. It reflects the fundamental gap between psychiatric classifications and the ontological realities of human being, or put differently, between clinical definitions and existential meanings.

This volume is grounded in the understanding that health represents a multifaceted phenomenon, deeply intertwined with our personal narratives, our connections to others, and our surrounding world. The work maintains that any meaningful understanding of our psychological experiences must account for the dynamic interplay between the individual, their social context, and the cultural framework they inhabit. From this perspective, an ecologically-informed approach—one enriched by interdisciplinary methods—holds substantial promise for advancing both care practices and clinical interventions.

This volume aims to fill the gap between philosophers and mental health professionals on an educational level, in a space unique in its open and transdisciplinary approach. It appeals to students and researchers but also very much to professionals and clinicians in the field. 

Table of contents: 

1. Introduction, Francesca Brencio 

2. The Musicality of Being. Embodiment and Temporality in the Development of Selfhood,  Valeria Bizzari 

3. Passibility. The Pathic Dimension of Subjectivity, Louis Schreel

4. Atmosphere and the Pathic Epoché, Veronica Iubei 

5. Anxiety from Within: A Cognitive-Phenomenological Study, Nofar Rodoy, Uri Hadar, and Yochai Ataria

6. Happy, from a Phenomenological Standpoint?, Susi Ferrarello 

7. Grief and Temporality, Emily Hughes

8. Empathy, Reflection, and Mental Health, Magnus Englander 

9. Making Sense of Things in Dementia, Roxana Baiasu 

10. The Lived Body in E-motion: A Transdisciplinary Approach to Dementia Diseases, Ragna Winniewski and Erik Norman Dzwiza-Ohlse

11. The Phenomenology of Mutual Trust in Psychotherapy: A Relational Account of Meaning-Making in Recovering the Self in Borderline Personality Disorder, Anna Bergqvist