Phenomenological Psychopathology of Common Sense and Medicalization Blankenburg and Kimura on Schizophrenia and Depersonalization

Abstract

In the tradition of phenomenological psychopathology, common sense has been focused upon as a key term. Blankenburg characterizes schizophrenia as a lack of common sense that enables an individual to understand a situation and cope with the environment and other people. The Japanese psychopathologist Kimura Bin has adapted the common sense approach to depersonalization, drawing on Blankenburg’s theory and Nishida Kitaro’s concept of “active intuition”. Phenomenological psychopathology of common sense theory risks medicalizing common sense by focusing overly on fundamental phenomena. In this paper, I rethought the achievements and the disadvantage of phenomenological psychopathology of common sense and envision a non-medicalizing common sense theory.