Zur Bedeutung der präreflexiven Selbstvertrautheit für das Verständnis psychotischer Ich-Störungen

Abstract

Dieter Henrich, Manfred Frank, and others represent a tradition in the conceptualization of self-consciousness that emphasizes the importance of pre-reflective self-awareness. As already pointed out by Fichte, attempts to explain self-consciousness via higher-order reflective acts run into vicious circles. Conceptualization of self-consciousness is of primary importance for the understanding of psychotic self-disorders, which include phenomena like thought insertion and control of a person’s own thoughts by alien forces. We suggest that such phenomena cannot be conceptualized appropriately without referring to pre-reflective self-awareness, which can be partially disturbed but never fully lost in psychotic disorders. We refer to Philosophical Anthropology and specifically Helmuth Plessner to present a concept of self-consciousness that includes both an egocentric position of the embodied self within its environment and a potential eccentric position, which unfold a multitude of human perspectives. Like Henrich, Plessner refers to Fichte when emphasizing that these different positionalities do not constitute separate identities, and we emphasize that pre-reflective self-awareness is a necessary aspect of self-consciousness that can be challenged in psychotic experiences.