Upcoming
12th EPSSE Annual Conference
11-13 June 2025
Panthéon-Sorbonne University
Delusion as Embodied and Narrated Emotion
Rosa Ritunnano
In his book Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions (1962), Sartre conceives of emotions as “magical transformations of the world”. When “all ways are barred and nevertheless we must act”, he writes, emotions change the world “as though the relations between things and their potentialities were not governed by deterministic processes but by magic”. This magical power, says Solomon in The Passions (1993), is the ability that emotions have to alter our “surreality” and reconstitute it according to our personal needs. Though neither Sartre nor Solomon explicitly discusses the case of clinical delusions (other than in passing), here I suggest that their analysis of emotions can help us shed light on the phenomenology of delusive states, i.e., what it feels like to be in a delusion. It can also contribute to explaining why delusions have the content they have, and why they are so deeply interconnected with our sense of agency and action. In addition, it can help illuminate the phenomenon of double bookkeeping, where deluded individuals interact, simultaneously, with both the objects of their illusions and hallucinations (their delusive world) and the everyday socially shared world.
In psychology and psychiatry, delusions are commonly understood as fixed, evidence-resistant beliefs. In this context, the attribution of delusion-status usually relies on epistemic criteria including falsity and evidence-resistance, as inferred by an external observer. Yet, delusion-experience is a first-personal kind of knowledge, one that cannot be observed directly by those who are not experiencing it. Neglected by mainstream psychology and psychiatry, phenomenological approaches to psychopathology have traditionally been more attentive to the subjectivity side of delusions, suggesting that they are more adequately understood as a different kind of reality experience. Phenomenological psychopathologists, however, have often neglected the situated and discursive nature of delusive thought and tellings, occurring as part of an ongoing process of self-narration and meaning-making (something that narrative approaches tend to emphasise).
Here, I draw on the results of a recent empirical study of delusion experiences, consisting of in-depth qualitative interviews I have conducted with people with psychosis, using a combined phenomenological and narrative methodology. Informed by these findings, I develop a philosophical account (inspired by Sartre and Solomon) of delusion experience as a kind of emotional transformation of the world. I defend three main claims: that 1) delusion experience consists of a coherent transformation of the lived world that follows the logic of specific emotions (albeit a misleading one); 2) it is the body, as Sartre suggested that, “directed by consciousness, changes its relationship with the world” so that a new (delusive) world is constituted; and that 3) the world so reconfigured is typically made sense of and told in the form of a narrative (or mythology – as Solomon calls it), reflecting our most powerful needs and desires, such as our urge to survive, need for belonging and companionship, and our drive for recognition. While we all live by these mythological categories in a figurative sense, in delusions, I suggest, we live them literally through the body.
Past
List of previous presentations, talks and symposia
Ritunnano, R. * (2024). “Taking the person seriously in phenomenological psychopathology”. Presented in person at the Renewing Phenomenological Psychopathology Closing Event, Florence, March 1, 2024. *Invited
Ritunnano, R. (2024). “What do delusions do? From personal narratives to situated bodies, and back” Presented in person at the Delusions at the Intersection Workshop, Zurich, February 26, 2024.
Ritunnano, R. * (2023). “Delusion & Meaning: An interdisciplinary exploration spanning Philosophy, Psychiatry, Linguistics & Psychology.” Presented in person at the British Academy ECR Network, Birmingham, June 30, 2023. *Invited
Spencer, L., Baiasu, R., & Ritunnano, R. (2023). Workshop about the Renewing Phenomenological Psychopathology Project. Presented at the Too Mad to Be True International Conference on the Philosophy of Madness and the Madness of Philosophy. May 27, 2023, Ghent, Dr. Guislain Museum (online).
Ritunnano, R. (2022). “Investigating the Meaning of Delusions at the Intersection of Phenomenology and Applied Linguistics.” Paper presented at the Renewing Phenomenological Psychopathology Launch Event, University of Birmingham, October 14, 2022.
Ritunnano, R.* (2022). “Understanding delusional complexities in early psychosis: why meanings matter”. Paper presented as part of the invited symposium “Ethics and personal meaning in patients with early onset psychosis” (with Prof. Matthew Broome and Prof. Ilina Singh). WPA 2022 Thematic Congress on Early Intervention in Psychiatry across the Life Span, Athens, June 24, 2022. *Invited
Ritunnano, R.^, Fernandez, A.V., Feyaerts, J., Pienkos, L., Stanghellini G., & Broome M.R. (2022). “Phenomenological psychiatry today, and tomorrow: methods, applications and context.” Symposium presented at the Congress of the Schizophrenia International Research Society (SIRS), Florence, April 8, 2022. ^Symposium Chair and speaker
Ritunnano, R., Fernandez, A.V., & Broome M.R. (2021). « Hermeneutical Flexibility and Empathic Openness in the Clinical Encounter: The Case of Delusions.” Paper presented at the Philosophy SIG Biennial Conference “Implicit bias in psychiatric practice: what lessons can philosophy offer to practitioners, learners and educators?”. September 15, 2021 (online).
Ritunnano, R., Fernandez, A.V., & Broome M.R. (2021). « Making sense of delusions in the clinical encounter: can phenomenology remedy hermeneutical injustice?” Paper presented at the Too Mad to Be True International Conference on the Philosophy of Madness and the Madness of Philosophy. September 23, 2021, Ghent, Dr. Guislain Museum (online).
Ritunnano, R. (2020). “Can delusions have and give meaning?” Paper presented at the Institute for Mental Health Lunchtime Seminar series, University of Birmingham, December 14, 2020 (online).
Ritunnano, R. (2020). “Self, World and Meaning: Understanding Existential Changes in Early Psychosis.” Paper presented at the British Society for Phenomenology Annual Conference, University of Exeter, September 4, 2020 (online).
Ritunnano, R. (2020). “Delusion and Meaningfulness: a Phenomenological and Narrative Analysis.” Paper presented at the Third International Conference on Philosophy and Meaning in Life. University of Birmingham, July 22, 2020 (online).
Ritunnano, R. (2020). “How is meaning-making affected during the formation of delusions? A proposal for a qualitative study in first-episode psychosis.” Paper presented at the annual workshop organized by the Phenomenology and Mental Health Network, The Collaborating Centre for Values-based Practice in Health and Social Care, St. Catherine’s College, Oxford, June 12, 2020 (online).
Birchwood, M., Ritunnano R., Thompson, A., Upthegrove, R., De Santi, K., Bonetto, C., Cristofalo, D., Fioritti, A., Lasalvia, A., Tosato, S., Ruggeri, M. (2016). “From Childhood Adversity to First-Episode Psychosis: Associations Between Social Environment and Specific Symptom Profiles.” Paper presented at X IEPA Conference on Early Intervention in Mental Health “Looking back moving forward”. Milan, October 20-22, 2016.