Phenomenology of lived space and psychopathology

Phenomenology of lived space and psychopathology

Phenomenological inquiry in the experience of space traditionally emphasized the dynamic quality of it instead of a geometrical account. Human being’s existence in its corporeality is seen as a body-in-the-world. One’s own body, as Merleau Ponty points out, “is the third term, always tacitly understood, in the figure-background structure, and every figure stands out against the double horizon of external and bodily space”. The world as a realm of possibilities co-constitutes the intentional horizon within which concrete or abstract movement will take place. For Merleau Ponty the distinction between concrete-centripetal movement and abstract-centrifugal movement is central in his inquiry. As he says “the background to concrete movement is the world as given, whereas the background to abstract movement is built up. The abstract movement carves out within that plenum of the world in which concrete movement took place a zone of reflection and subjectivity; it superimposes upon physical space a virtual or human space”. Along this distinction phenomenological accounts of psychopathological states will be examined. A special emphasis will be given to the organization of living experience in urban spaces and cities, seen often as a world who prioritizes “a concrete encounter” with its affordances and the potential for the development of experiential states deemed as psychopathological.