Phenomenology and lived experience of mental suffering

While there has been significant investment in medical research concerning the causes of psychiatric disorders, less attention has been given to the lived experience of subjective experience. In particular, it remains unknown when people suffering mentally decide to seek the help of mental health care professionals. What happens in the subjective experience of patients and in their everyday lives that leads them to seek help from a psychiatrist or psychotherapist to deal with their mental suffering?

There is also very little known about how a patient experiences an improvement in their mental health at the end of a treatment trajectory. Treatment efficacy is currently assessed using psychological scales that quantitatively measure symptom severity. Patients may however experience an increasing sense of autonomy, improved self-esteem, or more satisfying intimate and social relationships, experiences that may not directly align with their symptom scores. Furthermore, the subjective experience of treatment success may vary among patients who have undergone different interventions like pharmacotherapy, psychotherapy, or deep-brain stimulation.

The aim of this project will be to map the lived experience of patients from their first contact with healthcare professionals to the end of the line in which the patient experiences an improvement in their mental health.

Publications

S.M. Zwaard, S. Cohen, J. Kiverstein, A. Fernandez & D. Denys (In progress) The First-Person Experience of Recovery In Patients with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: A Qualitative Study.

Kiverstein (in progress). A predictive processing theory of anhedonia in major depression. S. Wilkinson & D. Cavedon-Taylor (Eds) The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Depression.

Dings & A. Golova (2025) ‘Is it me or my illness?’: self-illness ambiguity as a useful conceptual lens for psychiatry. British Journal of Psychiatry. Sep 4:1-4. doi: 10.1192/bjp.2025.10367.

Denys, Damiaan, R. Prosée, & D.J. Stein (2024). Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Certainty. In Aaron Mishara, Marcin Moskalewicz, Michael A. Schwartz & Alexander Kranjec, Phenomenological Neuropsychiatry: How Patient Experience Bridges the Clinic with Clinical Neuroscience. Cham: Springer Verlag. pp. 305-311.

Seed Funding

Fernandez & J. Kiverstein (2025-2026) The phenomenology of mood disturbances in major depression. Seed Grant from Epicur European University.