Prejudices in the psychopathologist: Karl Jaspers' heritage

Abstract

Contributions of Karl Jaspers to the discipline of psychopathology are numerous. One of his most important insights deals with the method of interviewing in psychopathology. Specifically, how an interviewer (i.e. psychopathologist) approaches and explores mental phenomena that present themselves in the person being interviewed. By cultivating a phenomenological attitude, clinicians also acquire and renew self-criticism (Selbskritik), an essential aspect of a true psychopathologist. A fundamental part of the critical attitude in descriptive psychopathology is the re-examination of prejudices present in psychopathological interviewing. This review outlines and discusses six types of prejudices, as abstracted by Karl Jaspers, and illustrates them with clinical examples. (i) Philosophical prejudice deals with deductive and inductive reasoning; (ii) theoretical prejudice addresses the modeling of understanding of mental phenomena by analogy with natural sciences; (iii) somatic prejudice addresses biological reductionism in psychopathology; (iv) psychological prejudice focuses on approaches that consist of psychological interpretations that transgress the boundaries of psychological intelligibility; (v) pictorial prejudice deals with conceptualizations of psychic life as an analogy with certain visual depictions; (vi) medical prejudice is connected with strivings towards quantity, objectivity and diagnostic precision in psychopathology. To have the ability to represent the inner life of a person, we must dispense with prejudices in the clinical encounter with our patients. With the demands of modern-day life, and requests for quick clinical assessments, the idea of examining our prejudices and performing phenomenological interviews is more important than ever.

Keywords: Heritage; Interview; Karl Jaspers; Prejudices; Psychopathology.