Psychosis as a dialectic of aha- and anti-aha-experiences: a qualitative study

Rob Sips, Zeno Van Duppen, Zuzana Kasanova, Lena De Thurah, Ana Teixeira, Jasper Feyaerts and Inez Myin-Germeys

Psychosis, 2021, vol. 13, issue 1, 47-57

Abstract: Background: Experiences of sudden and abrupt insight, sometimes termed aha-experiences, are often reported during psychosis. The aha-experience is described as a radical and sudden restructuring, realization or change in understanding. Based on personal experience, we argued that alongside this aha experience exists the anti-aha-experience. The anti-aha-experience refers to an experience of sudden insight that does not fit within one’s framework, convictions or worldview and has an undermining effect. We have conceptualized psychosis as a dialectic of aha- and anti-aha-experiences and argue that a dialectic tension between aha- and anti-aha experiences undermines a stable personal perspective.Methods: In this study, we set out to investigate whether individuals with lived experience of psychosis do indeed report forms of sudden insight, and particularly if they report aha- and anti-ahaexperiences, and the dialectic between them. We therefore conducted 21 in-depth interviews and 6 focus groups with individuals with lived experience of psychosis and analyzed the transcripts using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis.Results: The findings show that these phenomena are indeed often reported and could play a significant role in psychosis.Conclusions: Integrating these phenomena into our understanding of psychosis could help to better grasp the lived experience of individual patients and additionally inform other forms of research on psychosis.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/17522439.2020.1798492 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rpsyxx:v:13:y:2021:i:1:p:47-57

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RPSY20

DOI: 10.1080/17522439.2020.1798492

Access Statistics for this article

Psychosis is currently edited by Dr John Read

More articles in Psychosis from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().