A Phenomenology of Functional Neurological Disorder

“Aho gives voice to the suffering endured by patients diagnosed with FND, an uncanny medical condition with unknown causes situated at the border between neurology and psychiatry. He tracks the history of a diagnosis marked by shame and stigma which profoundly affects the possibilities of sharing and belonging to the world of others. Uniquely positioned as a leading scholar in the field of philosophy of medicine, Aho manages to combine his personal experiences with a phenomenological analysis of the specific symptoms and the changed identity they give rise to. He very convincingly argues that contemporary medicine needs to abandon neurocentrism and opt for a more radical empathy in the care of patients with medically unexplained disorders.”

Fredrik Svenaeus, Södertörn University, Sweden

“This book makes highly original and important contributions to our understanding of functional neurological disorder and also to phenomenological research. By drawing on themes in the phenomenological tradition and his own first-person experience, Kevin Aho challenges predominant biomedical conceptions of FND, instead giving voice to those who live with the condition. He develops an insightful and compelling analysis of how FND involves profound changes in the overall structure of experience, enveloping space, time, body, emotion, and self. Moreover, he shows how the phenomenology of FND is inseparable from one’s relationship with the social world, including how one’s condition is understood—and all too often misunderstood—by others.”

Matthew Ratcliffe, University of York, UK

“In this book, Aho provides the first systematic, phenomenological analysis of functional neurological disorder (FND)—a still poorly understood condition with historical roots in the diagnosis of hysteria. After critically interrogating neurological and psychiatric characterizations of FND, Aho develops an account that better captures the lived experiences characteristic of the condition. He not only provides a detailed phenomenological analysis of how the condition alters experiences of body, time, and intersubjectivity. He also considers the broader context of care and treatment, including the challenges of receiving a diagnosis. Written in his characteristically accessible style, the book is not only a scholarly philosophical contribution, but also a valuable resource for psychologists, medical professionals, and those with first-hand experience of FND.”

Anthony Vincent Fernandez, University of Southern Denmark

Kevin Aho is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Department of Communication and Philosophy at Florida Gulf Coast University, USA. He has published widely in the areas of existentialism, applied hermeneutics and phenomenology, and phenomenological psychopathology. He is the author of One Beat More: Existentialism and the Gift of Mortality (2022), Existentialism: An Introduction (2014; 2nd ed. 2020), Contexts of Suffering: A Heideggerian Approach to Psychopathology (2019), Heidegger’s Neglect of the Body (2009), and Body Matters: A Phenomenology of Sickness, Illness, and Disease, with James Aho (2008). He is also editor of Existential Medicine: Essays on Health and Illness (2018) and co-editor of The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Existentialism (2024).

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