This paper contributes to the debate in the philosophy of psychiatry regarding the relation between thought insertion in schizophrenia and the sense of selfhood. Some scholars have suggested that thought insertion presents a case where the sense of selfhood is lacking. Other scholars have disputed this by proposing that a form of minimal selfhood is a necessary feature of consciousness that is still present in thought insertion, albeit in a disturbed manner. Herein, I argue that the notion of minimal selfhood (...) that is used by these scholars is ambiguous between two meanings. The first is an ontological notion concerning the first-person individuation of consciousness. The second is a phenomenological notion concerning how a conscious experience is experienced as being given to the first-person subject. I argue that the former ontological notion is indeed a necessary feature of conscious experience, but the latter phenomenological notion is only a contingent feature. Therefore, even if it is possible that thought insertion presents a case where the feeling of first-person givenness is lacking or disturbed, the first-person individuation of consciousness remains present and undisturbed. As well as further clarifying the connection between consciousness and selfhood, this philosophical analysis reveals the extent to which schizophrenia can and cannot be said to comprise a disorder of selfhood. (shrink)

This is a commentary on the article “The Empathic Migrant” (Aragona et al., 2020), in which the authors explore the experience of empathy in male African refugees and asylum seekers in Italy with a diagnosis of PTSD (N=20). In the publication cited by the authors, I theorise that empathy may be impacted in individuals diagnosed with PTSD. I am drawing on a thin, phenomenological notion of empathy as a pre-reflective mode of perception and argue that in some situations, traumatised individuals (...) may cease to experience the other as another subject that offers possibilities for interaction (Wilde, 2019; cf. Stein, 1917, p. 53). The Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) administered by the authors suggests a different understanding of empathy. (shrink)