Paper short abstract:

By using both a phenomenological perspective and a cognitive approach, I explore the subjective experience of people diagnosed with schizophrenia, their sociability and the negotiation of their personhood.

Paper long abstract:

This paper focuses on how a person diagnosed with schizophrenia experiences her/his illness from a social point of view, and how the continuous interactions with a psychosocial centre for reintegration shapes her/his experience. The centre is attached to a state hospital in Bucharest, Romania, but people usually attending it, are no longer hospitalized. They tend to live a life divided between the centre and their homes. Lack of statistics regarding the social condition of people diagnosed with mental illnesses in Romania indicates that there is a blind spot to be addressed. Data from my fieldwork (October 2014 - March 2015) links the (re-)construction of personhood, to several layers that impact a person diagnosed with schizophrenia, such as bureaucracy, the medical setting or, what I suggested naming 'medicalized sociality'.

My research suggests that having the right political mind set and even the right laws in place, does not always guarantee social justice. Furthermore, the continuous contact with the medical settlement, influences the construction of self-perception, as well as the sociability of people attending this centre. Through an interdisciplinary approach I show that dysfunctional sociability associated with schizophrenia, is not only linked to dysfunctions in the cognitive architecture, but is also a byproduct of subjective experience.