Beyond Therapy: A Set of Essays
On Miscellaneous Topics in Psychology and Psychiatry (2001-2003)

II. A Provisional Topology of Psychosis Revisited

0.   Introduction

In this paper a number of technical psychological issues will be dealt with in order to help us deal with various psychological-philosophical problems that will be re-introduced in later papers in this series of essays titled: A Set of Six Essays on Miscellaneous Topics in Psychology. (1)

	The title of this particular essay alludes to a previous attempt of mine to topologically distinguish various types of psychosis in (the epistemological hierarchy that apparently constitutes) the overall nature of the psyche (as previous schematized by myself). The reader need not attend to previous work in this field as all relevant material will be spelt out. To abbreviate the length of this paper comments will be introduced in a note-like format with more technical matters relegated to the footnotes. Because of the formal and dry nature of this method some of the technical material will be made relevant by asides place between square brackets in order to spell out what issues are being addressed at that point! On other occasions additional material within rounded brackets can be ignored As a written piece this essay should be read in its entirety with/without our attending to those section within brackets, but, as a paper only those paragraphs prefixed by an asterisk need be chosen to read out aloud (?). Elements highlighted in bold acting as de facto headings. (2)

1.   The Psychological Introduction of this Topic

*On one hand the psyche appears to be monolithic and integrated. The person can address them ‘selves’ using a name or pronoun, a title or a description – “gee, I was an idiot this morning…”, and, in a similar fashion, they can equally be seen addressing each other, a phenomenological fact reinforced by the conventional situation that people can be found using a name or pronoun, a title or a description for each other - “hey, you over there…!” On the other hand, this overall semblance of self can also be regarded as a mask that effectively hides, metaphorically, a complexity of often competing senses of self found lurking behind such a constructed linguistic practice deeply embedded in social convention. In such a light we may ask what reality has an overall sense of self when it is also a veritable can of worms; each one competing to some extent in the darkness of a recovered sense of self for this prized mantle of being pointed out/self-appointed as ‘the’ self?! Should we (not) despair that there is no one absolute sense of self and therein declare that there is only a complex of selves wriggling together with nothing but the mere semblance of an intentional unity and that even a sense of self is only an appearance without inherent reality, without being, in some sense, a substantial self? Or do all these various senses of self somehow reflect each other and thereby successfully simulate a virtual sense of an overall self (that for all empirical purposes can be treated as if an ‘actual self’; as if such an entity could exist from a transcendental perspective?)? (3)

	*How the psyche is constituted and organized is a psychological problem – what the psyche might be or might not be is a philosophical question! In this essay let us deal with the former. In dealing with this problem – how is the psyche organized? – we must work within the sphere of language along with its use of names and descriptions, analogies and metaphors, models and their manipulation, and, the integration of these and other pragmatic devices. (4)

	*To some extent we may argue that the use of language is as a picture-tool. In our dealing with a text, as a writer and/or reader, our use of language ‘pictures’ the ground upon which that device is set up to operate upon just as, e.g., our understanding of a ‘spade’ to some extent requires a world that can allow a spade to function within it. Our ‘use’ of that ‘expression’ reflects in some manner or other the nature of the ‘ground’ upon which it is meant to work. A ‘spade’ ‘digs the garden of the world’. In our being able to use and understand any linguistic expression means we have to some extent understood already its conventional usage and how it is meant to operate therein. This conventional acquisition of its meta-textual sense of genre means it has already mapped out for us that part of the psychic world it has its intended primary (and secondary) sense(s) of application. So the word ‘sweet’ has its primary application in the ‘phenomenal’ sphere of taste and a secondary application in the connotational sphere of ‘being nice to know, etc’. So if we said ‘x was a sweet person’ it does not mean that they are ‘tasty’ in the primary sense of that type of expression because we have been set up to know, hopefully, that a secondary sense is therein intended; because only things that could be eaten can be tasted and in polite society we do not eat our guests we invite for diner! Just as, in a similar fashion, the world ‘taste’ also can have a wide range of secondary meanings. Exploring these echoes and resonances of language will take us into an exploration of the phenomenological nature of metaphor which will be briefly taken up elsewhere in this paper. But we must not misconstrue this picturing of a picture-tool as primarily ‘picturing’ because the primary sense of a picture-tool is to ‘point out’ where in our psychic sense of world this sense of picturing-to-ourselves can be done if this act of imaginative reconstruction is necessary for us to entertain! And this spells out the primary sense of sense itself in a phenomenological ‘sense’ as that which gives this psychic sense of location in the our world, that sense of world already schematized in and through the socially pre-constructed meta-textual divisions of our native language as re-discovered in our venturing forth into this shared sense of world. Hence, in turn, this meta-textual aspect of sense is its hermeneutical ‘meaning’, i.e., those conventions used that take us to these primary and/or secondary senses of sense that locate us, and re-locate us, in this intersubjective, multi-dimensional sense of world. Then, that sense of self that experiences this conjunction of ‘textual’ sense and ‘meta-textual’ meaning in turn delivers us the existential sense of meaningfulness-for-us of this relationship between this phenomenological sense and its hermeneutical meaning, and, this is realized as the existential ‘meaningfulness’ of that situation as encountered by us in this one-intersubjective-world-of-the-other. These three moments, in effect, constitute the three dialectical moments of the hermeneutic circle as introduced and examined by myself elsewhere. (5)

	*These three facets of the hermeneutic circle can be re-visualized in a gestalt ‘field’, this ‘model’ being constructed in the following fashion. What is focused upon, in that phenomenal field of experience, the text, is metaphorically treated as taking place in a psychic ‘foreground’ as that ‘being intentionally focused upon’ [through retentional re-iteration]. On the other hand the background is relatively meta-textual being meta-textual in its contextuality, i.e., as being relatively concerned with those conventions and textual influences beyond the current text under focus and that allow its social-formation to be (re-)formulated [i.e., re-adopted and re-adapted] in the form of a ‘text’; be it a text in a classical sense of that term, e.g., in the form [i.e., genre] of a written letter or as a book waiting there for us to read between its covers, etc., or in a non-classical sense as found in a perceptual image or the idea of a work of art, memories, photos, footprints along the beach, etc. On the other hand, that sense of self, in keeping with the nature of that field, metaphorically ‘inspects’ the nature of the ongoing relationship being entertained between that being ‘focused upon’ and that corresponding sense of field being ‘focused against’ [and therein gives us that current sense of self as, e.g., the reader of a text, as a perceiver, reviewer of a work of art, as a letter writer and/or reader, reader of a book, photographer, as a walker on a beach, or, what ever else in keeping with the nature of that interest invoked by these active/passive senses of self]. The gestalt nature of the field functioning in this ‘horizontal’ manner between [these ideal, archetypal senses of] Object and World and in a ‘vertical’ manner between [these ideal, archetypal senses of] Object-World and Ego, but, in such a fashion that all three moments, or poles (of Object, World, and Ego), reflect each other from their respective points of view and define each other through the joint ‘co-negation’ of the other two opposing poles. Hence in this light we might say that ‘Object’ can be defined as both “‘not World’ and ‘not Ego’”, etc. (6)

	Another way to construct this model of the hermeneutic circle is to understand what type of repetition is involved in each of these three interrelated dialectical moments that constitute this hermeneutic circle. (7)

	‘Mere repetition’ through the uniformity of its nature establishes a psychic sense of consonance which establishes the semblance of a background. On the other hand, the ‘sheer repetition’ of relatively different acts of focus creates a sense of dissonance which focuses the mind to naturally want to attend to such a difference. An appreciation of this relationship establishing a sense of self able to reflect upon that type of field being focused upon. The ‘bare repetition’ of this type of relationship reinforcing the apparent intentional understanding of that particular field under examination [through being ‘set up’ in an intersubjective provocative format that provokes that particular form of insight being re-iterated]. Although dissonance is experienced as relatively different its presence in a particular type of field [that establishes therein its phenomenal sense] not being absolutely different allows for a process of harmonic resolution to take place in and through that accommodation between text and meta-text and their conjunction with(in) the corresponding sense of self that can attend upon that particular [read ‘essential] ‘type’ of field. The ongoing nature of this process of harmonic resolution simulates, and resimulates, the course of the hermeneutic circle, an aspect (transcendentally) necessary for all acts of understanding of sense, meaning and/or meaningfulness and the nature of their overall, ongoing sense of interrelationship. That, therein, establishes this sense, meaning and meaningfulness of a relationship and through which that relationship finds its simulation (through re-simulation [i.e., through simulated retention]). (8) 

	Now, as all experiential fields are appreciated it implies that those fields in turn, in a similar manner, can be focused upon (i.e., the field then being treated as the ‘content’ of a ‘process’ of ‘appreciation’, being appreciated on this higher meta-level of organization). By such means an overall sense of self can also be simulated in keeping with the nature of that ‘ongoing harmonic act of synthesis’ (in accordance with the nature of its extent and the degree to which that psychic-state-of-affairs is currently being entertained given that the overall sense of ‘gestalt psychic unity’ fluctuates in its intentional formation being exercised [and therein exhibited through the deposition of texts] and finds itself reflected in the relative degree of integrity as then currently exhibited [in that deposition of texts]). (9)

	*How is a particular (or overall) sense of self to be experienced? While a text is experienced in a retrospective mode, i.e., as having been ‘written’. On the other hand, meta-textual considerations are experienced with a projective sense of future expectation. From the dialectical conjunction of these two ideal poles a third is re-created (through repetition) with a simulated sense of presence, as that acting in the temporality of the present. This aspect has been labelled by myself as ‘non-textual’ in nature; as characterized by that type of experience when one, e.g., is absorbed in the ongoing unfolding of a novel that delivers an existential richness whose presence of import is greater than the value of the degree of interest being invested in that act of reading (wherein one no longer approaches this text with the focal-thought ‘what is this text?’, ‘what am I reading?, am I enjoying my reading of this text?, etc., - such thinking returning us to a state of intentional consciousness wherein one is “‘thinking’ about reading” but not directly ‘reading’ per se) . (10)

	*These facets of the hermeneutic circle in their organization complexity within (the hierarchical stratification of the epistemological hierarchy of) the psyche establishes our topology of the psyche. An understanding of those aspects of our topology subject to some form of a psychotic dysfunction collectively establishing, phenomenologically, our topology of psychosis. Out philosophical-psychological treatment of this topic being considered as provisional by virtue of the ongoing nature of our researches. What are these aspects and facets that constitute this epistemological hierarchy and whose theoretical thematization and schematization allows us to phenomenologically map these essentially distinctive aspects and facets (of those aspects and their dysfunction through types of psychosis, etc.)? (11)

	*An appreciation of the natural grammar, and its artificial idiosyncrasies (discovered in our use of a language in this intersubjective world) will help us to map out this world-of-life, which as a collective-picture-tool, will show us what goes with what and what does not go with that, and, what goes or does not go with whatever else, etc. Hence already embedded in a natural language is a phenomenological mapping of the lifeworld! So we have words of taste and words of smell, a catalogue of descriptions for visual objects, a complex dictionary of abstract concepts, a lexicon of social functions, an overall relatively unproblematic field of ethical relations, pre-determined genres of self-expression, etc., etc. In effect a multi-dimensional, poly-aspectival mapping of the world that will also map for us how these items are interrelated; as a consequence, map out the relatively more fundamental territory whose broad features paint a psychic picture of this epistemological world of subjective-intersubjective experience. Hence a grammar of experiences that will allow us to talk much more meaningfully about ‘blue-circles’ than say ‘square-circles’, about ‘green-landscapes’ rather than say ‘green-noises’ or at least give us the means metaphorically to talk about, e.g., ‘white-noises and ‘sweet-people’, etc., without becoming profoundly confused in the process. (12)

	*Indeed, if we were to go to a dictionary, or thesaurus, we would find there, visible to some extent, just such a mapping of the world peculiar to the ontological commitments of that language shared by representative speakers of that way-of-living-in-the-world. Philosophically, we could also extract, by various arguments, the hermeneutical nature of the relationships between those expressions and how they might be grouped among themselves, in some great measure also reflecting the nature of our human constitution. The relative invariance of that constitution allowing the members of a natural language, to talk about, e.g., various colours and various shapes, and, allow members of different natural languages (and similar and different natural language-families) also, to some degree, to successfully intercommunicate with each other and thereby establish, as a fact, the ultimate commensurability of all human texts (if only in theory)! I.e., that all texts are commensurable in theory, but, that through the process nature of hermeneutic determination, we can also say, on one hand, that no text is absolutely commensurable, and on the other, to say also of a text (once ‘perceived’ as a ‘text’) that no text is also absolutely incommensurable. (13)
 
	How can a provisional schematization of language be put into place? And how can various schematizations be treated as commensurable (in turn)? For a start let us look in a dictionary and find all those expressions that seem to have a pronounced ‘mental component’ of a relatively broad sweep. In this light we may say that the expression ‘mood’ is a mental expression with a wider range of mental expressibility than the expressions, say, of ‘happiness’ or ‘sadness’ by virtue of the grammatical fact that we can say an experience of happiness is a type of mood but not vice versa, and, that sadness is a type of mood and not vice versa. Then, in turn, we might say that the experience of mood is different from an experience of conceptual thinking or perceptual thinking, etc. That we can think about having a certain type of mood but that we cannot feel a certain type of thought and still experience it as a mood. By such means organizationally placing ‘thinking’ as higher than ‘mood’ in the epistemological hierarchy of the psyche (because the process of a thought can have as its object a ‘mood’ but not vice versa; assuming that a process is organizationally higher than the ‘content of that process’ even though no true epistemological priority or preference can be given to a process over its content and vice versa. Hence no process without a content, and, no content without a process. Our priority of the former over the latter only being seen in terms of its (imputed) organizational complexity. (14)

	With this sort of grammatical sorting in mind I have produced the following classifications to form a hierarchy of mental terms (with this sense of increasing organizational complexity), namely, the Sensory, Motor, Emotional, Mood, Perceptual, Conceptual, Judgmental and overall Self-Reflective; each of these classification when paired in the order of their announcement giving us the bi-modal Facets that will constitute the following Aspects, namely, the Physiological (or Somatic), Affective, Cognitive and Appreciative (or Trans-Cognitive). Invoking the three dialectical moments of the hermeneutic circle on the level of each Facet will now give us a gestalt interpretation of each of those Facets, in effect mapping out the basic topological Features of our psyche (as constituted by this particular provisional mapping of our epistemological hierarchy as outlined). Hence this scheme of the Psyche, namely, tetra-modal Aspects, bi-modal Facets and tri-modal Features; making for a total of twenty-four features altogether (see Appendix I). (15)

*In this paper it will be argued that the psychotic dysfunction of these distinctive twenty-four features will result in a distinctive type of psychotic illness whose overall complexion is also dependent upon the extent other features are also subject to psychotic forms of dysfunction hence our overall Topology of Psychosis. (16)

	*A psychotic form of dysfunction will be defined in general as the breakdown in the effective functioning of the dynamic process-forces that constitute the functioning of the hermeneutic circle within each of our eight Facets that constitute the mapping of our overall Psyche. Moreover, this will be treated as the breakdown in the three distinctive types of suspension that constitute a hermeneutic circle (when considered in its transcendental ideality). The distinctive location and/or locations in our schematized Features accounting for the nature of that psychotic expression, e.g., as a depression, delirium, hallucinations, etc., etc. It now behooves me to theoretically describe the nature of psychosis in its transcendental ideality, and, to phenomenologically describe the distinctive nature of those individual forms of psychosis in their distinctive ideality realizing that no Aspect, Facet or Feature of the Psyche can be ideally disentangled from the overall schematization of the Psyche. That task of phenomenological description/prescription when completed then calling for forms of critical appreciation and appraisal in order to evaluate the relative worth of this scheme, or any other, in this regard. (17)

Hence the Psychological Introduction of our topic. Let me now discuss the transcendental ideality of the hermeneutic circle before phenomenologically describing/prescribing our twenty-four distinctive forms of psychosis as seen through the lens of our provisional schematization. (18)

2.	The Transcendental Ideality of the Hermeneutic Circle

*In previous work a ‘psychosis’ was defined as ‘being trapped in the (transcendental) suspension (in contrast to a neurosis which was more or less ‘understood’ as being trapped outside the suspension’. Although there are some indications that a neurosis might be regarded as the inverse or converse of a psychosis more recent work would suggest that neurotic like features arise through an inadequate response to stress and consequently I would now dispense with this concept of being ‘trapped outside’). The formula of ‘being trapped in the suspension’ the word ‘in’ seems to be the operative term here? Moreover, in recent work done on the nature of the hermeneutic circle we must supply the fact that there are at least three distinct types of suspension in order to account for the ideal tri-modal nature of the hermeneutic circle and the dialectical nature of its dynamics. At the object-pole (‘towards’ which we have the thematization of the intentional object) we have what I call a reductive style of suspension. At the background-pole, in turn, we have a reconstitutive style of suspension. Then at the ego-pole we have a suspension of both of the former in what I would like to call an institutive suspension. Let me discuss the ideality of these three types of suspension within the hermeneutic circle in some depth in order to account for the specific, or essential, nature of each. Armed with this information and then specifically locating our three types of suspension within this schematization of the epistemological hierarchy we could then, it is hoped, account for the nature of its dysfunction and therein predict the nature of its psychotic consequences, or, armed with accurate phenomenological descriptions we might be able to reverse this method and find a place for them in our scheme; both methods hopefully reinforcing each others’ provisional interpretations of psychic reality in this regard. (19)

*In previous work a reductive suspension has been treated as conjunctive suspension, i.e., as a “conjunction of both ‘is like’ and ‘is not like’”; the structure basically at the root of metaphorical thinking. On the hand the reconstitutive suspension is a disconjunctive suspension, i.e., as a disconjunction of “it is either ‘like’ or ‘not like’”; the process basically at the root of rhetorical thinking, i.e., as involved in the asking of a question. Lastly the institutive suspension is a conjunction of these two former suspensions. (20)

Two more ideal suspensions could also help us in understanding how the centre of intentional gravity in the epistemological hierarchy can proceed to the next Aspect or Facet. Or return to previous levels of organizational complexity. In ascending to a higher level of epistemological organization each of these three ideal suspensions internal to the hermeneutic circle are equally neutralized by the addition of all three in a state of suspended balance, i.e., “’it is like’ and it ‘is not like’ plus ‘it is like’ or it ‘is not like’ plus ‘it is both “’it is like’ and ‘it is not like’ plus ‘it is like or it is not like’” (previously referred to a ‘not textual’ like state of affairs. On the other hand to descend in organizational complexity it would (theoretically) be necessary for a complete cancellation (rather than a neutralization) of the institutive style of suspension.(as outlined above), i.e., a negation of the fourth of these suspension as just outlined. These five suspension-types accounting for the dynamics of each facet-field and our theoretical ascent or descent from such a frame of reference. (21)

By such means as these simple operations of ‘is like’, ‘is not like’, ‘and’, ‘or’ we can generate these five ideal types of suspension. And therein the dynamics of the hermeneutic circle. Let me elaborate. To move from one suspension-pole to another we need to invoke the simple mechanism of the joint negation of the other two parties to where we are not going. Because each of the three ideal poles that constitute the hermeneutic circle are the conjoint negation of the other two parties. So if we wish to migrate towards the object-pole we theoretically can do either of three things, namely, institute a reductive suspension, put into practice the conjoint negation of a reconstitutitive suspension and an institutive suspension, or, both of the former. Indeed, once our three poles are established all we need do is shift the emphasis of our conjoint negations in order to move around this hermeneutic circle ‘clockwise’ or ‘anti-clockwise’. Furthermore, because of the dialectical nature of these operations we can also envisage an almost simultaneous and equivalent shift in the opposite direction at the same time so that virtually there is no real shift in orientation but an effective enrichment of the overall field through an accumulation of its self-thematization. Put another ways we might say that each of these poles reflects the productivity of the other two and in so doing there is a state of parallel polar correlativity (in the same manner, e.g., as envisaged by Husserl with respect to a noetic-noematic correlativity – in our model the ‘horizontal’ noematic mode more or less corresponding to the object-background axis and the ‘vertical’ noetic mode more or less corresponding to the ego-pole versus the interobject-background axis. Hence, by such a simple economy, the hermeneutic circle can be navigated internally (and externally) and therein understood in its transcendental ideality, i.e., understand how the hermeneutic circle must operate in psychic reality in order for the mind to think at all and therein acquire knowledge (of other objects and other minds) and an understanding of itself as an agent in this (transcendental) intersubjective-subjective world of life, i.e., the life-world. All sense, meaning and meaningfulness being thematized between these three poles of the Object, World and Ego  (respectively) as treated herein in their transcendental ideality. (22)

What has been described here is a way of thinking about how gestalt fields function within themselves internally and how they might also interact externally between themselves. I would argue that no field internally or externally maintains a perfect thematization and transmission of information consequently acts of imperfect informational realization can be invoked to explain a series of phenomena that will be investigated in this series of essays from psychoses, as in this essay, to acts of self-deception, as in the fifth essay, e.g. (23)

I would like to note that the findings put forward in this essay are to be treated as provisional. One might say (in line with Neoplatonic thought) that ‘the finer the distinction the greater the degree (/sense) of unreality’. This observation needs to be kept in mind when we try to pin down, so to speak, how our Psyche is divided into Aspects, which in turn are further divided into two Facets and thence into Features. Then, once having settled upon a set of divisions, we are then at liberty to retreat the nature of their interactions (as will be done when I will later in this paper re-examine the concept of orders). (24)

*How are these schematized divisions arrived at in this essay? The Psyche is treated as an overall sense of self. That sense of self is then looked at through the four lenses of the Physiological or Sensory-Motor, the Affective or Emotional-Mood, the Cognitive or Perceptual-Conceptual, and the Appreciative or Value-Transvaluational. Next these four Aspects will be subdivided into two Facet each with three Features based upon the ideality of the hermeneutic circle as just outlined, i.e., these three suspension of the reductive, reconstitutive and the institutive. As argue, an inability to leave any one of these suspensions in this Scheme of the Psyche is treated as manifesting, in an equivalent degree, a psychosis whose distinctive phenomenal nature will reflect its position in this schema. Hence a total of twenty-four psychoses will be given an ideal description/prescription even though in reality the presence of a psychosis will more normally reflect a cluster of features involving a series of dysfunctional features. It being the task of the diagnostician to note not only those features apparently present but the nature of their relative importance in coming to treat that psychotic individual (i.e.,. the psychic centre of that psychosis in this Scheme). This Scheme being of help in this task by helping us to focus and notice those dysfunctional features, assist our being able to judge their degree of severity ,and, hopefully, help us to note which factors (or vectors) should be more focused upon in a program of treatment. E.g., in a schizophrenic illness, say of a hebephrenic nature, if this illness were also to manifest with a more severe affective component of psychotic depression then that should be enough to alert the clinician to this associated fact (in our schematized awareness) that if this psychotic individual is also extremely suicidal then it is that type of feature that should be looked at more closely and given priority in the formulation of a ‘patient centred’ treatment program! Indeed, need we note, that a dead patient cannot be treated! (25)

Let me now outline these twenty-four types of psychosis predicted by this schema and whose phenomenological descriptions might allow us to slot them into this Scheme (as well as weight the degree of their appearance there). (26)

3.	Twenty-Four Phenomenological Descriptions of Psychosis

The reader is advised to look at Appendix I. To be noted there that all psychoses are read in sets of three based upon these ideal suspensions of reduction, reconstitution, and institution oriented on these three moments of Object, World and Ego respectively. The object-moments is essentially retrospective and focalized. The world-moment is future oriented and non-focalized. The ego-moments being present oriented and appreciative of the nature of its corresponding field. For convenience they will be numbered and provisionally labelled:

1.	Sensory Rigidity: Psychosis on this minimally organized level being prescribed/described as over focused on perceptual data., e.g., manifesting in fixed staring, selective over attention to a sense field (with/without a tremor), etc.
2.	Lability: Paradoxical-like fluctuations being prescribed/described as a general lability in sensory attention (with/without a tremor), etc.
3.	Hallucinations: Projection of possible state of affairs that re-interpret/pre-interpret focalized aspects of the sensory environment (with/without a tremor) (to the extent that hallucinations always take place in a sensory environment that is not a totally hallucinated fiction. Gradations in ‘imagery’ formation realizing shifts from misinterpretations to hallucinations to dreams to surreal fantasies to a collapse of sensory ‘imagery formations), etc.

4.	Lethargy: Non-focalized focalization on motor activity realizing a state of lethargy. Non-focalized by virtue of being at the ‘background’ level of the Motor Facet, but, at the same time, a focalization on the motor repertoire resulting in a state of lethargic motor inactivity (with/without a tremor), etc.
5.	Fluctuating Motor Activity: Alternating activity and inactivity (with/without a tremor), etc.
6.	Delirium: chaotic motor activity with a profound loss in cognitive orientation, etc,. with/without a tremor as in a delirium, etc.

7.	Obsessional State: Obsessive thoughts predicated on a retrospective time-orientation characterized by a sense of guilt, etc.
8.	Obsessive-Compulsive Behaviour: When the obsessive content is closely proportional to the degree of compulsive behaviour as reported by the individual predicated on a present time-orientation characterized by a sense of ongoing anxiety, etc.
9.	Compulsive Behaviour: Compulsive behaviour without marked pre-obsessional content, overall impulsive behaviour predicated on a prospective time-orientation characterized by a sense of imminent dread, etc.

10.	Depression: Depression of a psychotic depth with/without suicidal ideation, psycho-motor retardation, low mood and libido, , etc.
11.	Agitated Depression: The mixing of depression and manic energy creating an agitated state, with/without suicidal ideation, etc.
12.	Mania: An irrational over-exuberance of mood maintained, and sustained in intensity, for a relatively lengthy period of time.

13.	Delusional Attachment: E.g., stalking, repetitious attached behaviour, irrational guru worship, idolization, etc.
14.	Simple Schizophrenia: Vague, amotivated thinking and behaviour without the overt demonstraton of psychotic-schizophrenic symptons as present in 16-18.
15.	Over-Interpreted behaviour: Over-reading of texts, significant over valuation of meaning, excessive searching for significance, accepting conspiracies at face value, etc.

16.	Hebephrenia: Marked fatuousness, defuse thinking, etc., with/without auditory hallucinations (which in a more extreme form take the form of command hallucinations), etc., with a focus on ‘content’ as psychotically presented.
17.	Catatonic Schizophrenia: Cognitive and behavioural paralysis, etc., through being ‘trapped’ in a suspension between reduction and reconstitution, i.e., trapped in an institutional suspension, etc.
18.	Paranoid Schizophrenia: Paranoid thinking, ideas of reference, an irrational sense of being victimized, presented with some degree of systematization or interconnection, etc.

19.	Borderline Sociopathic Behaviour: (Sociopathic behaviour being perceived as less focused than psychopathic behaviour which is relatively more focused), inability to cope with frustration, etc.
20.	Narcissistic Sociopathic Behaviour: An excessive attention to a (fantastic) sense of self that does not correspond with reality.
21.	Inhibited or Avoidant Sociopathic Behaviour: An inability to interact with others even on a superficial level of interaction.

22.	Political (or Active) Psychopathology: Tendency for apparent long term goal setting in a political context, a perverse enjoyment exercised through the power of political manipulation, etc.
23.	Histrionic Psychopathology: Over-dramatic behaviour, self-preoccupied, demanding, attention-seeking behaviour, etc.
24.	Dependant (or Passive) Psychopathology: A desire to be manipulated by other, especially dangerous when this is done by an active psychopath. (27)

As previously noted these Features as differentiated above remain in a provisional state. Let me now make some additional comments on why I have adopted this particular schematization. (28) 

Somatic psychoses have not been closely researched. The first six Features of our Scheme are therefore to be treated as highly provisional and should be regarded as only tentative proposals. (29)

I include the obsessive-compulsive spectrum of behaviour as a psychosis. I no longer regard it as a neurotic type of phenomenon. The characteristic lack of operative insight would incline one to regard it in this light. Moreover, the use of anti-depressant drugs do seem to be an option in the treatment of this disorder complex. Moreover, it has been noted in the literature that cortical levels do not respond in the same fashion to anti-depressant medications as used in psychotically depressed patients suggesting a different, but closely related, psychotic mood orientation? (30)

I would like to note the inclusion of borderline personality disorders in this list of psychoses but would differentiate the same from more marked psychopathology on one hand, and, on the other, from long-term neurotically induced forms of social dysfunction. (which might open up for us an avenue for investigating the imputed possibility of a chaotic territory interposed between psychosis and neurosis realized in the making a of transition from the former type of illness to the latter and vice versa. (The nature of the relationship between psychosis, states of relative normality and neurosis will be explored in the next essay). (31)

*An interesting phenomenological situation arises in each Facet as to how the institutive suspension is distinctly experienced in comparison with the imposition of the same suspension in different Facets. E.g., in catatonic schizophrenia (Feature No.17) a dysfunction in this type of suspension seems to result in a state of virtual paralysis or catatonia. As argued elsewhere, a ‘suspension’ in general needs itself ‘to be suspended’ in order to avoid our being trapped within the metaphorical embrace of the same. A serious dysfunction in a suspensional component of this scheme realising a distinctive type of psychosis in keeping with nature of that type of suspension. In an institutive suspension, in which a sense of self is realised in keeping with the nature of that field (as expressed through its focal-oriented conjunctive suspension and background-oriented disconjunctive suspension) we need to suspend that field’s conjunctive and disconjunctive suspensions. In the instance of Catatonic Schizophrenia this defective suspensional process seems to realise a state of paralysis. On the other hand, on the psychic level of our Emotional Facet, an institutive suspension seems to blur the distinction between obsessive thinking/feeling and compulsive practice. Then again, on the level of Mood, an agitated depression appears like the tremulous collision of manic energy and depressive inertia in a state of indecisive upheaval, a dysfunctional condition where, it would appear, the making of a decision is almost impossible task to enter into in intentional terms of reference. Hopefully we can phenomenologically explain why different institutive suspensions seem to take on such a different variety of basic forms of expression (such as lability, paralysis, free-flowing, agitation, etc.)? E.g., in the perceptual field only one concrete image can be focused upon in the same moment of time whereas various conceptual ideas can be entertained simultaneously by virtue of their treatment as vectors that can be added together as resultants. Then, again, on the other hand, emotions can only be quantitatively added together regardless of whether they be pleasant, neutral or unpleasant given the predominance of a particular type of mood (as in the use of pain to paradoxically heighten certain forms of pleasure). (32)

4.	The Critical Treatment of this Provisional Schematization

*The critical treatment (and appreciation) of this Scheme can be conducted on two levels or perspectives, namely, that of the schematization itself and presuppositionally. (33)

*On a non-presuppositional level the critical assessment of this Scheme can be looked at from a number of perspectives, namely, preparation, exercise and consequences. In a preparational critique our interest is divided between presuppositional analysis (as already noted) and a suppositional analysis and critique. In the latter we look at the intentions of this Scheme and judge whether they are coherent, proper and obtainable. Under the heading of exercise we judge the degree to which those intentions put into practice are indeed effectively coherent, proper (or appropriate in the light of our intentions) and to what extent they are, or could be, obtained in current practice. Lastly under the heading of consequences we conduct a consequential analysis or pragmatic appraisal to see if our objectives have been met and to what degree this Scheme is, or could be, successful and/or unsuccessful in the light of those apparent intentions. (34)
 
    	*What have been my intentions in the formulation of this Scheme. From close observations of psychotic conditions over many years I have notices that many conditions do seem to have distinctive phenomenological manifestations, albeit sharing many of the features that characterize a psychosis in general. This has led me to seriously consider the schematization of the same given that those individual instances of psychosis can already be classified as organic, affective, cognitive, etc., or, in the form of a delirium, mania, schizophrenia, etc. Secondly, I have also observed the need to accurate differentiate all the prominent features of a psychosis in order to prioritize what avenues of therapeutic intervention need to be adopted it at all. E.g., I have often noted that a schizophrenic illness, regardless of its actual type, is often complicated by the presence of a pronounced affective component, i.e., with manic features, a depressed suicidal vector, an agitated component, etc. With such a complicated picture the schizophrenic element, even if the centre of that complex psychotic picture, has the appearance of that primary element being exaggerated until such a time the affective component, or what ever else, in this regard becomes addressed (or finds itself addressed in the goodness of time assuming that all psychotic phenomena can be treated as wavelike in their intensity and occurrence/re-occurrence and will eventually resolve themselves in some form or other; even if only remaining in a non-chronic remnant or chronic residual form). (35)

     	In a presuppositional analysis the key propositions that underpin this schematic edifice must be addressed. As all modelling is in effect a complex metaphorical enterprise, and as all analogies imply certain limits beyond which they must break down (through the fallacy of the extended analogy, as already noted by myself elsewhere) it behooves us to critically engage at this level in our attempting an appraisal of such an endeavour. E.g., in this enterprise key propositions that might be criticized could be ‘are their different psychoses or are they merely different expressions of the same one underlying psychosis or of only a few, e.g., affective, cognitive, etc?’, ‘is there a disorder that can be looked at, i.e., modelled, from a field/hermeneutic circle/repetitious/harmonic point of view, i.e., in the manner as proposed here, does this Scheme have any real therapeutic potential?’, ‘what other propositional structures seem to underlie this ‘type’ of scheme’, etc, etc? But given the constraints of time imposed by the ambitions of this paper I must leave this relatively more philosophical task to some future paper (or to someone else qualified to carry out such an in-depth, critical appraisal). (36)

     	Before concluding this essay I would like to look at the following two topics, namely, how do we adopt an ordered analysis (on a cognitive level) given this particular schematization into Aspects, Facets and Features, etc., and given the demands of modelling in this paper what exactly is metaphorical thinking (analogical thinking) in the light of this model? (37)

5.   How is an Ordered Style of Analysis Conducted in this Scheme if at all?!

     	An ordered analysis (in a linear format) was developed myself in New Zealand as a method to determine as to which order, level of cognitive organizational complexity, a thought process was able to achieve. To this extent it could also be seen as a theory of existence, to what form of propositional existence could a certain proposition ‘p’ attain to. By such means it could then be argued phenomenologically that this type of structure was psychologically present in the manner that type of thought was arrived at epistemologically, or, at least to the extent that this type of model was able to model the processes of thinking itself along with a taking into account of all limits imposed by the nature of such an analogy, etc. Later, indeed much more recently, I redesigned this project along circular lines rather than in its original linear format incorporating it within the ambit of the tri-modal hermeneutic circle (as discussed in this paper). The six original order were then also seen as implicated in six distinctive forms of value, namely, essential value (in a pre-essential form), aesthetical value (giving complex essential form), ethical value, pragmatical value, hermeneutical value and factual value (which were seen as within the hermeneutical circle representing the archetypal relationships between .the following respectively, namely, Object-Object, Object-Ego, Ego-Ego, Ego-World, World-World and World-Object).; the same matching our six orders ,namely, non-integrated, pre-essential subsistant thoughts (like the impossible idea of a square-circle), integrated, essential subsistant thoughts (like the thought of a red cube), existent ideas (like the idea of a red cube being thought about), existent perceptuals (like the perception of a real or imagined red-cube), the non-integrated subsistent possible fact (of a red cube-like state of affairs) and the subsistent actual fact (of a certain red-cube-like state of affairs, say this red box I can see on this table or ‘know’ is in that drawer inside that table). By the stage an actual fact is realized we have maximized its state of existence from an epistemological point of view; our ontology recognizing various states of existence as just outlined. At this point the reader is referred to Appendix II: Archetypal Re-Imposition of the Orders Upon Facet-Features. (38)

     	Using this diagram we can trace out the following path that re-maps out our ascension up through these ‘six circular’ orders (with a background to these orders being seen to adopt a degree of integration in nature the reverse of the product being focused on, i.e., a pre-essential product being non-integrated implies that the background of that particular field-aspect, or feature-vector, should be seen in a contrary light, i.e., as very much integrated implying the psychic world of universal like thoughts at the level of its ordered background effectively forms a ‘world’ within which one maps out the phenomenological ‘sense’ of a proposition, etc.). As Aspect is divided between two Facets, each with three features, as noted on this map our path is drawn from archetypal feature 1 to no.4, to no.2, to no.5 to no.3 and finally to no.6 (even though the process nature of the hermeneutic circle is circular. On a cognitive level this sequence would be textual object, to meta-textual object, textual ego, to meta-textual ego , to textual-world, and ‘finally’ to meta-textual-world. (39)

     	Another way of arriving at these ‘six’ order would be to impose upon our understanding of an Aspect, traditionally this has been on the Cognitive level, a tri-partite horizontal dimension and a tri-partite vertical dimension whose matrix interaction would then give us nine ‘Features’. However, taking the point of view of possible permutations in mind we would still end up with six types of ‘ordered value’ in sympathy with that particular Aspect. Let me demonstrate this. (40)

	W	E	O

W	ww	we	wo		

E	ew	ee	eo

O	ow	oe	oo

     	Now assuming the permutations ew = we, ow = wo, oe =eo, then we can assume that we are then left with six types of value, namely, non-integrated/integrated subsistent thoughts1o (first order) essential-phenomenological pre-essentials, 2o aesthetical essentials; injected/projected existents  as 3o ethical ideas and 4o pragmatical perceptuals; non-integrated/integrated factual-like states of affairs as 5o hermeneutical possibles and 6o actual factuals. If we were to accept these ‘nine features’ as individually distinctive in their own right we would then have to differentiate, e.g., e-w from w-e, i.e., the treating the relationship between the Ego and World as different from the nature of the relationship between World and Ego, etc. Assuming all relationships are not one way, but reciprocal to some degree between all their parties, it implies that we would most likely not need to invoke this nine-featured form of schematization other than to note that we can invoke a matrix on a relatively horizontal level of organization and relatively vertical level of organization but still remain with our six-fold divisions of the orders imposed upon the bi-modal nature of the Aspect. Extending this type of ordered analysis to the Affective level might help us to delineate basic emotional types, e.g., love, hate, reverence, anger, joy, sadness, etc., but this remains only speculative at this stage. The distinctive and temporally defined combination of these relatively simple emotions producing complex emotions (like melancholy being a specifically structured conjunction of the emotion of love, for 0.8 seconds, followed by a certain time interval of sadness?). (41)

     	Let me now more on to the nature of metaphorical thinking and its ability to model the world. (42)

6.   Metaphorical Modelling

     	*An understanding of the function of metaphor is crucial to a finely tuned phenomenological appreciation of the nature of psychosis, and, how we might be able to go about modelling the dysfunctional nature of psychosis within the ambit of this, or some other, Scheme (and from that overall insight come to a deeper appreciation of how the individual or collection of people can, wittingly or unwittingly, deceive each other and/or self-deceive themselves). (43)
     
     	*In a cognitive psychosis there is usually an impairment of abstract thinking. If we understand how this might occur a strong, clear light might be cast forth, so to speak, and illuminate for us the general nature of psychosis, or least some intrinsic feature of it? Having argued that all forms of psychosis are breakdowns in the suspensional dynamics involved in the functioning of the hermeneutic circle, as they occur on, and between, all levels of the psyche, this observation should prove useful and insightful? (44)

     	*This impairment of abstract thinking means the person concerned has problems understanding the apparently intended use of metaphor, thinks in a more concrete mode, and, from my personal observations, to the same extent looses their ability to enjoy a humorous point of view; although they may simulate an enjoyment by laughing without really knowing what is ‘going on’. As all humour has a point this ‘point’ may be ‘felt’ as being ‘directed at them’, rightly or wrongly, and in a paranoid fashion react accordingly – often visibly expressing unease, annoyance, upset, aggression, etc. Consequently, a lesson that needs to be constantly remembered, being humorous with such people, when they are unwell, can be a dangerous enterprise. (45)

     	*As previous noted in this essay metaphorical thinking is entertained through the use of the conjunctive suspension. Given a certain meta-textual context where a metaphorical reading is set up to be read, the metaphor operates on the principle of “both ‘being like’ and ‘not like’” the item that forms the metaphorical model upon which this metaphorical modelling will be allowed to take place. So the moon is like a round cheese, meaning, “both ‘like’ and ‘not like’ a round cheese” As a metaphor always inhabits an expectational horizon, i.e., is ‘set up’ in a meta-textual context, it follows that the rules of how that metaphor is to be interpreted should, in the main, follow meta-textual conventions in this regard. So to say a certain person was ‘like a lion’ means, normally, (both like a lion and not like a lion’;) i.e., a man of heroic martial-like skills, etc., and, not a hairy creature that eats raw meat, walks on all four limbs despite being, in truth, a human being. Hence, by implication, the overt nature of a metaphor inhabits a covert meta-textual world, a world over-ruled by disconjuctive suspensions (‘is it the case that this person is metaphorically intended to be ‘like’ a lion?’). (46)

     	*But it is to be noted that the psychotic person often cannot fully appreciate conventions as they would normally be expected to be observed by other members of that culture or cultural group. They seem to miss intersubjective cues, or over-interpret the same. So, as an illustration, for a psychotic person the traffic light that switches on to say “cross” might mean to them ‘to be cross in mood’ or ‘to cross yourself religiously’ besides merely being a convention to control the passage of pedestrians across busy street-intersections. Then, again, we might have a conversation with a very psychotic person, or, rather, ‘try’ to have a conversation, and find great difficulty in being understood or being able to understand them. We might need ‘to turn their speech around’ in the form of a rhetorical question in order to find out hopefully what they seem to be on about presupositionally. In other words, asking them to clarify, contextualize, etc., what they were ‘trying to say’.  So, as an illustration, “you mentioned that ‘Sam seems to be altering the weather’ what did you mean by that comment?” “O, Uncle Sam, Americans, green house gases, you know that sort of thing… secret experiments done by the C.I.A….” When you merely noted that “the weather was a bit strange for this time of year”, a piece of information that did not ‘ask’ for that type of commentary. In the context of a mere introductory comment about the weather it was, and would be, received as a strange reply that would have been better kept to themselves as it revealed, in its initial reception and explication, that that person was probably ‘psychotic’ even though most people might hold with the following: that Americans are effecting the weather through their excessive green house emission, that the CIA probably do ‘do secret experiments’, etc. But in making a simple comment about the weather in order to pleasantly engage someone in conversation it was unnecessary and inappropriate to reply with this type of commentary regardless of whether it was right or wrong in part or in whole. Essentially, the cue of mentioning ‘the weather’ as ‘an introductory genre in engaging a person in conversation’ was not understood as conventionally used. That, such additional ‘information’ supplied was neither called for nor expected, was not appropriate in that context and under the circumstances, moreover, was indiscreetly or inopportunely divulged, etc. That this inability to ‘dance’ in such a relatively simple conversational topic by a member of that culture or cultural group can be symptomatic of a psychosis, the severity of this ‘being out of step’ often indicating an equal severity in the psychotic depths of that illness. Then, again, some very intelligent people know what should be said in such a context and can appear to hold a reasonable conversation (unless certain triggers are accidentally or deliberately invoked, such as e.g., the CIA, the Americans, the Catholic church, Jews, the Liberal Party, Communists, or whatever category of individuals or groups preoccupies this type of paranoid person, are mentioned directly or indirectly and are revealed as ‘implicated’ in their delusional systems). (47)

     	*So, how can we explain this loss of cognitive communication as experienced in our interaction with a psychotic person? Can we invoke some form of dysfunction in the operating of the hermeneutic circle (which as a structural-process seems to underlie all forms of informational formation, transmission and reception)? (48)

     	*It would seem that in the simple misreading of a metaphor, and the concrete types of reading often proposed, that the text is understood but that there is a faulty misinterpretation of the meta-textual context that metaphorical ‘text’ was meant to understood within. In other words, the metaphorical ‘set-up’, the genre and metaphorical intention of that metaphor, was not appropriately understood. This might be explained by an inability to fully appreciate the meta-text of that metaphor. So the metaphorical image is read more in the phenomenal light of the text and the text per se. “That a rolling stone gathers no moss” means “a stone that is rolling gathers no moss as it need to be stationary in order to gather moss”, whereas, normally, as a genre, this proverb is meant to mean “that a person who moves about the world all the time and can put down no roots cannot develop a sense of home-life with the stability and all the opportunities, accoutrements and better prospects of the same, etc.” Or, hopefully, something to the same effect. (49)

   	*So, in this light, metaphorical misreading is entered into when  text is ‘read’ and only the textual aspect of a text is read at face value, i.e., the text is not re-inserted into its appropriate genre or ‘the horizons of its self-evident expectations’, wherein a successful fit releases an ‘insightful’ existential surplus of meaning reinforcing the provocational meaning of that metaphor to not only seem strange, and be provocative, but, to also provoke the metaphorical meaning as apparently intended. Whereas, to suddenly drop into a conversation, say about some friend of ours, that “a rolling stone gathers no moss” must seem a strange thing to say to someone who has little abstract, metaphorical reasoning, although, having probably heard this expression used before and only vaguely thinking they understand what it might mean may reduce some of that ‘strangeness’. However, multiply this lack of finessed comprehension by the number of times we use expressions in a non-literal sense and add the fact that conventions in other forms are also misunderstood and you will soon appreciate how conversation cannot escape being ‘misinterpreted’ by the psychotic party (and that from this misunderstanding our misunderstanding of them is exponentially compounded in turn in this tidal mismatching of metaphorical intent and understanding, transmission and reception, etc.). Then add a second, or a third psychotic party, etc., to that public conversation, and you can ‘see’ how communication can quite seriously fail when two or more psychotic parties try to understand each other as well. No wonder, under such circumstances, psychotic people can be found to be ‘paranoid’ when they seem to be ‘missing the point’ and ‘know’, to some extent, that they are also missing the point in their understanding of the conversations in the world around them; this self-observation being reinforced by the non-psychotic party or parties to that conversation seeing and hearing, indeed ‘feeling’, a lack of comprehension by that psychotic person (and in some measure often ‘reflecting’ in turn a ‘passive form of paranoia’ in their expression of an attitude that notes, with or without exasperation, that they don’t seem to understand the psychotic party and/or that the psychotic party don’t understand the non-psychotic party, etc.). So, in this light we might argue that in a cognitive psychosis with an impairment of abstract thinking that the text is inadequately appreciated in its meta-textual context, indeed would appear to be overlooked (not looked at, looked at incorrectly, etc.). In essence, treated literally, as a text, overlooking or not even looking at its accompanying contextual meta-text. (50)

*We might like to propose then the following rule or principle as a first contribution to our understanding of the nature of psychosis. That in a psychotic dysfunction there is a disruption in the level of epistemological organization necessary to appropriately appreciate a certain input of information. Meaning, e.g., in a cognitive psychosis, that when a text is presented there is an inadequate appreciation of cognitive input, that there is an inadequate appreciation of text, meta-text and non-text, especially the latter two moments or polarities; in other words the degree of epistemological organization necessary to effect an adequate appreciation of that text is absent in the full reading of that text (in order to advance the ‘reader’ to an adequate meta-textual/non-textual level(s) of appreciative organization). Or, in general terms of reference, that the degree of epistemological organization that needs to be accessed and exercised in the ‘reading of a certain text’ is absent or not present in a form that can adequately complete that task. (51)

     	*To say, e.g., "that someone is like bamboo" might at first strike one as a rather strange thing to say. This could be seen, initially, as a culturally dependent metaphor, a metaphor already understood in a specific culture, say China. In a culture that has bamboo growing and uses metaphor based on this type of plant it might mean 'the person who is compared to bamboo is to be seen as a flexible person' - tough but not hard (to allude to the Tao Te Ching). Bamboo is supple plant - in the wind it bends but does not break. Once someone from another culture understands what phenomenological aspect of the phenomenal image is being alluded to, its specific metaphorical allusion, that metaphor no longer remains just a mono-culturally specific metaphor. Indeed, the trans-cultural understanding of metaphor seems to be one of the ways translations seem to be able to accurately cross languages and language families. (52)

     	*Having discussed how a particular metaphor seems to operate, and how metaphor seem to operate in general, let us now work in the opposite direction and try to understand what happens when metaphor are misunderstood by the psychotic mind. The following instance come to mind: a rather grandiose patient, with a schizo-affective disorder, told me without batting an eyelid that he was "Louis the XIVth." In reply I casually asked him "do you speak French?" His immediate retort was "None of your bloody business!" I guess I tweaked what I call a 'hot spot' - that type of response when you seem to get a person who maintains a certain delusion to realize that they cannot hold that delusion on logical grounds by demonstrating to them that they would be entertaining contradictory beliefs (such as 'I am Louis the XIVth', Louis the XIVth speaks French, but, 'I don't speak French' with the implication that I cannot be Louis the XIVth.'. Rather than admit defeat and express the fact that they were wrong you get instead a very edgy sort of response that vehemently denies that they could possibly be wrong (even though the nature of the response seems to suggest that the person has seriously entertained that fact). Why should such a person hold this type of delusion and try to defend it when the proposition 'I am Louis the XIVth.' is quite ludicrous? Let me look at a solution to this puzzle along the following lines. This patient had an elevated affect. He presented as quite grandiose, his unsolicited self-description reinforcing this fact. Now, I would surmise that 'he felt grand' and 'felt like Louis the XIVth.' In a breakdown of metaphorical thinking, as discussed earlier, there seems to be an overlooking of the meta-text and a tendency to accept the metaphorical image as the text qua text. So, in this light his description of himself as 'feeling as grand as Louis the XIVth would have' becomes 'I am Louis the XIVth' - identifying with the metaphorical image not in a metaphorical mode but in a literal, concrete mode. (53)

     	*Again, let us try to look in reverse at the following situation. Bed-bound through a recent stroke, an incontinent, catatonic lady was punching the staff as they tried to change her incontinence pads, etc. With quite a fare wallop.- much to everyone’s amazement, including the catatonic woman herself. I think we could analyze this type of situation along the following lines. This very nice woman was most upset at being in hospital, and even more upset by the fact that she was having people poking around her nether regions. She probably felt and thought along these lines. I am so angry with people invading my privacy and my private body space that I feel like punching them. And before you knew it, quite literally, that indeed would happen, even to the astonishment of this catatonic woman herself. What was felt and thought, and imagined, as a possible state of affairs became fact in practice. It was as if the thought 'I feel like punching that person' became 'I will punch that person now'. So, in the near paralysis of catatonia, thinking of a possible action became an actual action when she probably would not have sanctioned such a response (whereas on the other hand, her desiring a certain response became almost impossible, as if all action was stuck in the following suspension wherein a desire to do 'a certain action x' was being simultaneously paralleled by the opposite desire 'not to do that action x'). The different responses that would seem to arise from ‘metaphorical visualization’ and the ‘concrete projection of action’ perhaps explaining why people with this type of schizophrenia can suddenly switch form a state of catatonia to a marked state of brief physical activity. On the other hand the demonstration of a waxy flexibility might arise from a metaphorical state where the person envisages them self in just a such a predicament (I fell like rubber, I feel as light as the wind, I feel like a tree, a statue, a robot, etc., with all the ‘feedback’ that might entail?). (54)

*Now, how does this inadequacy of organizational access reflect upon the psychological and philosophical problem(s) of deception and self-deception? (55)

     	*It would appear (from an interpretive understanding of this type of Scheme) that with ever Aspect, Feature, and Facet there are both a corresponding sense of background or World but also a corresponding sense of self or Ego. Hence, e.g., an effective sense of self, an emotional sense of self, a happy sense of self when experiencing pleasure and/or intentional success in its passage through the world, depressed senses of self when the person is subjected to a psychotic or reactive type of depression, etc., etc. Of course it would be ridiculous to suppose that there exists a distinctly different state of self for every aspect of self that can be entertained in the course of human experience. Just as ridiculous to suppose there is one and only one sense of self too! Let me elaborate. (56)

     	*The person is, without doubt, in a non-psychotic state, intimately enmeshed in an embodied sense of self. We appear to see through our two eyes, we seem to hear through our ears, we shake hands with our hands, etc. But, we do not have just an empirical sense of self. We can imagine ourselves walking on the other side of the street, understand another person’s position on a certain subject, remember where we were yesterday or where we were ten years earlier, imagine where we might be doing tomorrow or when we take our next holiday, imagine what it would be like to have lots of money, etc. All these things are not available to an empirical, currently embodied sense of self but are still entertained by an overall sense of self that is also embodied in the here and now. How can this be? Surely our various sense of self in some way intercommunicate with each other so that an overall sense of self can operate in such a manner that is not just empirically bound in this here and now. And even if we were embedded purely in some sense of the present the fact that we could appreciate that fact would imply an awareness above and beyond those otherwise limited terms of reference. Therefore, just as we have an awareness of time beyond the confines of the present moment so too we must have an awareness of self that is equally not limited to a merely embodied sense of time along with a sense of self that would be in keeping with those limitations. At the same time we must not draw the opposite conclusion and assume that this ‘transcendental sense of self’ is completely disembodied from an empirical sense of self. On the other hand, between these two extremes, we could say that in some measure we find our existential freedom in this ability ‘to range beyond’ the current limits of an empirical sense of embodiment and therein fully enjoy the relative intersubjectivity and objectivity of the life-world of the world-that-is-there-for-us. What implications does this have for a comprehensive psychology? (57)

Let me now make some final comments on the nature of modelling. All complex metaphors are essentially erected on the foundations of simpler metaphors in touch with basic phenomenologically distinctive phenomena that constitute the palette of what it means to be a human being, i.e., possess a human constitution. So metaphorical allusions to taste, and sweetness, e.g., have an obvious grounding in our ability to taste, and discriminate therein those sensations that appear as sweet. The psychic map of the distinctive contours of this human constitution lays the basic foundations for our intersubjective mapping of the lifeworld upon which we build our own personalized vision of the same (through our own historical development in this world-of-life). This gives us our phenomenological appreciation of sense as a text schematized in this intersubjectively structured sense of world. A meta-textual appreciation of this sense of sense or text gives us our access to an understanding of meaning. Then, an existential understanding of how this relationship between sense (or text) and meaning (or meta-text) relates to an overall sense of self realizes its meaningfulness in the form of a non-text (in an experience described as non-textual). And by these means the three moments of the hermeneutic circle are completed. Modelling is to be understood within this framework of sense, meaning and meaningfulness. In modelling a vision of reality the invocation of sense locates our 'model' within the multi-dimensional, poly-aspectival world of life as mapped intersubjectively by that culture or cultural group. In this light we might say, e.g., that 'Prime Minister X is a political psychopath'. The expression 'political psychopath' should alert the reader to the fact that this expression has been coined by myself in our Scheme as just outlined (indeed, as a psychosis with the following numerical location, namely, 22). The expression 'Prime Minister X' invoking some entity already mapped historically and politically in this intersubjective map of the life-world. The intersection of these two sub-maps, the 'Scheme of the psyche in relation to psychotic illnesses as outlined by myself', and, our 'historical-political understanding as to just who this Prime minister X is meant to be' establishes the (provisional) sense of this entity in our intersubjective mapping of this world-of-life. In such a fashion, whether concretely or abstractly, modelling is entered into. Metaphorical modelling invoking a necessary, conventional meta-textual appreciation of the text in order to 'image' the complexities of human language, which, when successfully entered into, realizes the metaphorical richness, or other wise, of that metaphorical modelling whose existential richness, and meaningfulness, is realized through it non-textual appreciation. That which works for us in understanding, the metaphorical nature of the modelling to hand, being experienced and reinforced through this relative existential richness of significance as revealed in its non-textual appreciation. These three moments reinforcing each other or disestablishing each other, as the case may be, within the orbit of the hermeneutic circle as previously outlined. Hence this topological modelling of psychosis can be viewed in the same light. (58)

This topological model can be simply 'viewed' as 'mirroring' the epistemological 'hierarchy' of the psyche as outlined on pages 8 and 9. Moreover, each 'facet' was described as falling within the 'three moments' of the hermeneutic 'circle'. Another metaphorical way of seeing this enterprise could include our treatment of the psyche as if it were a building with a sensory-motor basement, affective shopping precincts close to the ground floor, a cognitive high-rise segment comprising units and/or office space and a final viewing region at the summit of this building wherein we can down upon the world (and through the use of security cameras can also look inside the immensity of this building, and, through 'empathy', 'see' into other buildings as well, etc.). But, it should be noted, that as will be found in the use of individual metaphors, there is always a limit to modelling, beyond which we should not transgress, through the fallacy of the extended analogy; that region beyond which our modelling of the world must fail us hence, again, the provisional nature of this type of enterprise. (59)

7.   Conclusion

     	*To end I would like to make some concluding comments rather than write a definitive conclusion. (60)

     	*Sometimes the most difficult things are in essence the simplest, and, the more simple things are, in truth, the most difficult to discuss. The structure of this Scheme, as outlined in this paper, in its overall layout is relatively non-complex. Increasing complexity only enters the picture with an increasing interest in detail… but then the Devil is in the detail so they say. (61)

     	*Another problem is the dialectical nature of the distinctions being imposed upon this schematization of epistemological reality. In so much that finer distinctions need finer degrees of qualification and that much truth can also be found in entertaining the opposite position(s) at the same time. But, then, that is the nature of our fine-detail epistemological appreciation of reality when subject to suspensions (both in its imputed process-content levels of psychological functioning and in its ongoing philosophical interpretative analysis-synthesis). As a result it becomes very difficult to give an account of research to date when it is both provisional, self-interpreted and subject to much ongoing dialectical qualification. However, be that as it may, there are some very basic principles being exercised in its constructive edification. Let me outline some of these broad brush strokes. Each, in themselves, at root, in their modelling of reality, consisting of one or two very basic phenomenological items like triangles, circles, the floors of a building, fields, movie screens, etc. Items that are very deeply embedded already in our repertoire of 'sense-units' that comprise our psychic map of reality. (62)

     	*The epistemological hierarchy was compared to a building with its basement in the Sensory-Motor Aspect, etc. Implicit in this model is the concept of appreciation, namely, that all states-of-affairs are 'appreciated' from the vantage point of a level of epistemological organization higher by one (or more) meta-degree(s) in status. So, in this light, we might say that the feeling of pain is appreciated as pain qua pain from a the vantage of a cognitive point of view even though pain qua pain is experienced on an impressional level, namely, as an emotion or emotional reaction in the Emotional Facet of the Affective Aspect (although it would have its usual basis or primary location on a somatic level (in the Physiological or Sensory-Motor Aspect [unless induced from a higher level, say as in hypnosis]). (63)

     	*The hermeneutic circle is treated as tri-modal, possessing three moments or ideal polarities. This has been analyzed in past papers from a miscellany of perspectives, e.g., suspensions (as in this paper); repetition (also alluded to in this paper); harmony (background consonance, focal dissonance and ego-resolution); reductions; analysis-synthesis; time-orientations of past, future and present, etc. The difficulty not properly addressed in this paper is to account for the essential nature of a psychiatric disturbance from the specific modal dysfunction theoretically envisaged within this Scheme. Let me elaborate with reference to sections 16 and 13 and their respective dysfunction in the form of a hebephrenic schizophrenia and a delusional attachment; as in stalking, e.g. How do I account for this specifically located linkage in this Scheme in such a manner that other people might arrive at the same conclusion(s)? For a start I would like to invoke a rule of thumb that treats every higher facet in each aspect as relatively covert, i.e., as a background, and as behaviour flows from the more integrated background their corresponding three psychoses, in contrast, are relatively more overt in presentation. So a schizophrenic is more likely to come to the attention of a psychiatrist than someone with a stalking mentality (unless that stalker is becoming problematic in the exercising of their delusional attachment to the person being stalked); or who has a 'simple' form of schizophrenic (14); or behaviour that indulges in an over-interpretation of the world (15), as in the form of conspiracy theories, etc.. Similarly, on balance the medical profession would see more of the former than of the latter? Not that the phenomenon of stalking, e.g., is to be treated lightly when it is being persistently put into practice. Now, why do I see both of these phenomena as focal in orientation? Stalking and other attached or fixated phenomena do seem to implicate a focalization of intent. Hebephrenia, on the other hand, despite the diffuse nature of its 'apparent' or 'communicated' thinking processes seems to concentrate on the psychotic presentation of content, its most extreme form taking the form of command hallucinations which are 'listened to' and 'obeyed' by those individuals when they become extremely psychotic. Then, in comparison, in paranoia, there seems to be a preoccupation with an overall delusional system hence its placement in the background field aspect of our circular hermeneutic processes. As quipped by Woody Allen in one of his recent movies where one of his characters refers to another person "as someone who is the opposite of a paranoid person because they actually believe people like them". This insightful comment could apply to people who stalk others. They genuinely seem to believe that they are beloved by the person whom they stalk, in this Scheme being section 13 diagonally opposite the paranoid locus of dysfunction, located in section 18. And by this type of thinking, finding a place in our overall topology although most Aspects can be found in usual practice already classified together as in types of schizophrenia, types of mood disorders, types of organic psychosis, types of sociopathy or personality disorders (with problems associated with judgment, ego-function and matters of identity). It then only being a matter of appropriately slotting them in (but a process that has much to compare itself with the filling in of a jigsaw puzzle). Ideally, our predictive-prescriptive research should be able to account for the basic essential nature of that type of feature and its dysfunction. Then, in counter-balance, our phenomenological descriptions should be able to help us discern these same distinctions but in reverse, albeit provisionally. Their mutual correlativity, from Scheme to phenomenal reality, and vice versa, reinforcing, hopefully, these otherwise arbitrary decisions of emplacement or psychic location. (64)

*We might like to entertain one last metaphor used in implicitly modelling this Scheme, namely, the movie screen. Against the movie screen we see an image. Focusing on that image allows us to pay more attention to that under focus. But this discrimination cannot really take place on the screen itself as it is exercised and appreciated from a higher point of view, namely, from the point of view of the movie goer themself, or, i.e., a sense of self in keeping with the nature of the material it entertains, in this case as a movie goer. Although, like all metaphors and all models this one equally should not be pushed beyond the natural limits of that analogy (yet, in so far as what it 'undoes', and the manner of its deconstruction, can also be just as informative and insightful). (65)

     	I have also needed to make a number of other decisions. Just what disorders should be treated as psychotic? E.g., in this light I have now decided to treat severe borderline personality disorders as also psychotic in orientation (in comparison to relatively transient neurotic disorders promoted by certain reactions to stress of a long term or short term duration [as a consequence of poor childhood upbringing/environment, e.g.,][sociopathic disorders often complicated by other psychotic type features such as depression, e.g.], and, the perception that an obsessive-compulsive type of disorder is also psychotic in nature (and should also benefit by being treated as a psychosis in its own right). (66)

     	Although I have argued that this Scheme is provisional this should not be seen as an admission that nothing is to be gained from exercising and researching this type of topological grid. However, a psychotic illness rarely invokes a set of clear-cut differentiations of the world around us and one of the advantages this type of grid has, rightly or wrongly, is to differentiate those strands of the psychotic illness that appear to be present and appropriately prioritize those aspects of treatment that seem to be called for! As a another rule of thumb: psychotic regions lower in this topological scheme should be given a greater degree of precedence in our overall treatment plan. Hence the observation that is better to treat and emphasize an organic psychosis more than an accompanying affective psychosis, or in a schizo-affective illness that it is better to emphasize our treatment of the affective component rather than any cognitive component, etc. (67)

     	*But the main value of this type of Scheme ultimately must reside in its pragmatic utility! I have already argued that the use of this type of grid should be able to help the therapist to prioritize the course of the treatment program that most probably needs to be adopted and adapted in an appropriate manner on a patient to patient basis. It if serves in this regard, even to some extent, then taking this Scheme into consideration would surely be worth its while in this relationship between patient-and-therapist! (68)

     	*Hence the potential relevance of this provisional typology of psychosis!? But this complex metaphor of the Scheme in its simplicity and complexity, should not be taken beyond the natural limits of its appropriate exercise in application - hence, at the same time, the inescapable provisional nature of this type of enterprise! (69)

							      Noël Tointon, Sydney, 15.12.01.

PS:   I joked to a friend of mine during the time of the writing of this ‘essay’ that people reading it might think I was psychotic. Well, it is my hope that my valiant reader will come to realize the difficult nature of this topic and congratulate me that I didn’t become too psychotic in the course of writing it. Moreover, it is also my hope that my reader does not become too disoriented in their coursing through this text. Lastly, I would like to apologize that I have not spent enough time and effort in establishing the phenomenological descriptive-prescriptive fit of these ‘24 psychoses’ as seen, rightly or wrongly, through the lens of this Scheme. To the last very day in the writing of this ‘paper’ this Scheme has been changing the numbers, i.e., locations, of these various psychoses, within its ambit, but, that now, I feel more comfortable with the final ordering at the time of the posting of this thesis. Would be the first to admit, however, that a lot more work needs to be done in certain areas, especially in the regions of the Physiological and the Appreciative. Any feedback on this, and other allied topics, will be most gratefully received, Noël.

P.P.S: On finishing this series of essays my current thoughts on the validity of this schema are still with serious reservations. For a start, the ‘phenomenological’ method of typological descriptions in, say, the DSM IV, etc., do have a validity of their own. However, there is no absolute reason why one typological system needs to be adopted (except for pragmatic reasons). On the other hand we should be able to move from one version of reality to some other via transformational rules if those versions/visions of reality are indeed rooted in reality. On the other hand I believe, in the long term, that a typology must also be topologically situated as a psychic map of the life-world, itself, a reflection of the epistemological organization of the psyche, and, that the latter will and should be viewed/re-viewed from as many fruitfully productive perspectives as possible and relevant to the situation to hand, but, all subject to a thorough overall transcendental suspension in order to test their phenomenological effectiveness, etc., and prevent us from being ‘too psychotic’ in our determination of pathological and non-pathological states, etc. Furthermore, I feel much fine-tuning and revision will need to be done to the version as ‘outlined’ here. In other words, things are provisional, remain provisional and a work that will remain ‘in progress’ in this respect, N.

Appendix I: Diagramatical Representation of this Provisional Topology of Psychosis

……………… Appreciative………………

O		E		W
22		23		24
Transvaluational

O		E		W
19		20		21
Value

……………….Cognitive………………

O		E		W
16		17		18
Conceptual

O		E		W
13		14		15
Perceptual

..………………Affective………………

O		E		W
10		11		12
Mood

O		E		W
7		8		9
Emotional

…………….Physiological………………

O		E		W
4		5		6
Motor

O		E		W
1		2		3
Sensory
………………………………………………………..,
reductive - institutive - reconstitutive suspensions
Appendix II: Archetypal Re-Imposition of the Orders Upon Facet-Features 

		O1 20	 	E1 30		W1 60		Non-focalized Facet

				  					
(Cognitive)ASPECT

		  
		O0 10		E0 40	 	Wo 50		Focalized Facet

Key: 

O = Archetypal Phenomenological-Intentional Object,
E = Archetypal Existential Ego,
W = Archetypal Hermeneutical World (Background).

Subscripts noting meta-level status,

Superscripts noting ordered status.

	The following relationships producing our six orders respectively, namely, 10/O0-O1, 20/01-E1, 30/E1-E0, 40/E0-W0, 50/W0-W1, 60/W1-O0… and hence the circular nature of our orders (their sense of an individual background being seen to operate in the reverse direction).