Phenomenology of Hallucinations

Phenomenology of Hallucinations” – Massimiliano Aragona

Monday, May 8, 17:00 CET (16:00 BST)

The registration for the second lecture of the Institute of Applied Psychology Interdisciplinary Series third season is open. We will be  honoured to host Massimiliano Aragona with a talk titled: “Phenomenology of Hallucinations”

REGISTRATION: Please feel welcome to register using this link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/phenomenology-of-hallucinations-by-massimiliano-aragona-tickets-624724456667

Abstract:

In current research, hallucinations (particularly auditory verbal hallucinations, AVHs) are the object of opposite interpretations: Are they the mark of severe mental disease or a ubiquitous phenomenon that can be experienced also by healthy persons? Are they produced by psychotic mental processes or the effect of trauma-induced dissociation? In this talk I will explore these issues, suggesting that current quarrels are often based on a common assumption: hearing voices as a unique phenomenon that can be interpreted differently. In a series of papers appeared on Dialogues in Philosophy, Mental and Neuro Sciences (written whit Stefano Naim & Matteo Maggiora), we explored different features of AVHs in different clinical syndromes, suggesting that traumatic hallucinations and schizophrenic hallucinations are clinically distinguishable different phenomena. Starting from this psychopathological description, we settled the methodological requirements for the construction of a Phenomenological Auditory Hallucinations Scale (PAHS), which is under construction and will be presented in its key features.

Our guest:

Massimiliano Aragona, psychiatrist, psychotherapist and philosopher, is the clinical director of the Mental Health Unit at the Italian National Institute for Health, Migration and Poverty (INMP).
Founder of the Roman Circle of Psychopathology and editor-in-chief of the international open-access journal Dialogues in Philosophy, Mental and Neuro Sciences. He chairs the Philosophy & Psychiatry section of the European Psychiatric Association.
Author of books and articles on several issues including clinical psychopathology, epistemology of psychiatry, phenomenological psychopathology, history of psychiatry and psychology, psychopathology of migrations and post-traumatic stress reactions, psychopharmacology.
His publications in philosophy of psychiatry include: The role of comorbidity in the crisis of the current psychiatric classification system (Philosophy, Psychiatry & Psychology, 2009); Philosophy of clinical psychopharmacology (Psychiatria Danubina, 2013); Neopositivism and the DSM psychiatric classification. An epistemological history. Part 1&2 (History of Psychiatry, 2013); Alternative perspectives on psychiatric validation. DSM, IDC, RDoC, and beyond (Book edited with Zachar, Stoyanov & Jablensky) Oxford University Press, 2015; The hermeneutics of mental symptoms in the Cambridge School (with Ivana Marková, Revista Latinoamericana de Psicopatologia Fundamental, 2015); An experiential approach to psychopathology: what is it like to suffer from a mental disorder? (Book edited with Stanghellini) Springer, Switzerland, 2016; The person’s position-taking in the shaping of schizophrenic phenomena (with Stanghellini, Gilardi & Ritunnano, Philosophical Psychology, 2022).