Rob Sips

This paper develops a phenomenological account of hallucinations and delusions as disorders of temporal synthesis rather than as "positive symptoms" or simple perceptual-cognitive failures. Drawing on Henri Bergson's philosophy of memory-perception synthesis, I argue that psychotic phenomena represent specific breakdowns in the living processes through which consciousness ordinarily integrates past, present, and future into coherent temporal experience. Hallucinations emerge through ungrounded actualization of memorial content without proper temporal framing, while delusions represent false synthetic frameworks that restore apparent coherence while losing connection to shared reality. By retrieving Bergson's original insight that "there is no perception which is not full of memories," this analysis demonstrates how Eugène Minkowski's selective appropriation of Bergsonian concepts redirected phenomenological psychiatry away from memorial processes toward an exclusive focus on temporal flow and vital contact. Contemporary phenomenological psychiatry continues this "forward bias," emphasizing protention and desynchronization while underemphasizing the active, creative role of memory in temporal constitution. Through phenomenological analysis integrated with Merleau-Ponty's embodied phenomenology and Gadamer's hermeneutic insights, and grounded in first-person accounts of psychotic experience, the paper proposes understanding recovery as temporal reconstruction and suggests therapeutic approaches based on rebuilding memory-perception synthesis.

Research increasingly highlights the importance of social disconnectedness for the development of psychosis. However, the perspective of individuals with psychosis remains largely underexplored. At present, there is also no comprehensive view of the role of social processes throughout different phases of psychosis development. The current study aims to investigate 1) how individuals with a psychotic disorder experience social disconnection and 2) the role of social disconnection We conducted two focus groups, with individuals diagnosed with a psychotic disorder (N = 8). The data were analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. We structured the data according to three phases: pre-psychotic early life, development of psychotic symptoms and recovery. The first phase included following themes: “developing distrustful views of others through childhood interpersonal adversity” and “growing up socially isolated”. The second phase had three themes: “increasing separation between common and individual reality perception”, “struggling to share psychotic experiences due to stigma” and “losing relationships due to feeling misunderstood and decreased social functioning”. The final phase encompassed: “accepting psychosis diagnosis through social support”, “grounding influence of others” and “finding purpose through social integration”. In general, individuals with psychosis viewed social disconnectedness as a highly important factor for understanding and treating psychosis.