Schizophrenia and common sense: study of 3 single cases.

There is new interest in subjective experiences of schizophrenia. This kind of analysis emphasizes the subjective stories of patients, and the methods do not pretend to have the objectivity of science. However, the plausibility and the empathetic resonance of the single case may bring subjective confirmation to the validity of an insight and indicate new directions of research. Following this line, the authors present a study of 3 single cases of 'reflexive' residual type of schizophrenia. The methods for selecting the cases and the philosophical groundings of the concept of 'reflexive schizophrenia' are explained. The analysis of the single cases revealed that (1) schizophrenic persons' cognitive deficit is related to the constitution of common sense; (2) some schizophrenics cope with the cognitive deficit by creating a theoretical corpus of axioms stemming from common sense, namely the 'axioms of everyday life'; (3) this mechanism of coping is described as an inflexible attachment to 'axioms of everydayness', and (4) this attachment to common sense releases the patient from all personal investment of self in the process of anchoring in the living world and, on this basis, allows a relatively solid, although distant, attachment to reality. The nature of deficit in schizophrenia is also discussed by confronting the phenomenological point of view and the neuropsychological, that is the so-called 'theory of mind'. Copyright 2000 S. Karger AG, Basel.