Marcin Moskalewicz

The goal of my research project is to analyze temporal disturbances in mental disorders and, as a result, to create a phenomenological “map” of pathological experience of time. A map provided but the clock is insufficient, for as an abstraction of the lived time it is meaningless. What we urgently need is a phenomenological map of temporality encompassing pathological modes of experiencing time. Its major advantage would be cutting across existing classifications of mental disorders and avoiding untimely biological explanations.

The project is about to continue the tradition of philosophical-psychiatric reflections on time in mental disorders that started a century ago and concerned temporal disturbances in conditions such as:, depression, compulsive disorders, manic psychosis, schizophrenia, addictions and dementia. Unfortunately, the most sophisticated studies in phenomenology of time are lacking clinical references. On the other hand, existing classifications of mental disorders, DSM 5 and ICD 10 (as well as their older versions) give very little attention to the problem of temporality. This unfortunate gap between the abundance of theoretical reflections and the scarcity of their clinical references must be bridged. Bringing together conclusions stemming from phenomenological studies on temporality, categories of philosophy of history, and cultural studies on time, and applying them to clinical, empirical knowledge, both past and present, is the contribution that my project is supposed to make.

The most tangible result of the project will be a book, accessible to both humanists and mental health professionals. It would specifically answer two philosophical-medical questions: (i) Does there exist an original (value-free) notion of temporality against which particular pathologies could be assessed? And if such a notion is unattainable, what would be a healthy – this time in the normative sense – temporal relationship between past, present and future in an individual’s daily experience? (ii) Can temporal pathologies be interpreted as disorders in themselves, and not as epiphenomena built upon primary mental illnesses? If this appears to be the case, would such holistic interpretation be able to provide ground for uniting otherwise separated categories of mental disorders?