ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses ego disorders in psychosis and distinguish them phenomenologically from related phenomena such as obsessions and hallucinations. It also describes an attempt to understand thought insertion and other passivity phenomena in analogy with the experiences of alien motor control. Passivity phenomena range among the prominent core symptoms of schizophrenia and include thought insertion and blockade. Plessner and Frank suggests that pre-reflective self-awareness is a core characteristic of human mental experiences and that there are different ways in which it can be disturb in psychotic disorders. In contrast, Lambo's observation that West African psychotic patients with traditional upbringings do not report ego disorders suggests that social and cultural practices play an important role in the generation of such phenomena. Finally, the chapter discusses whether it is limited to traditional European accounts of psychosis or whether it can indeed be translated into different cultural settings, in which psychosis is today clinically diagnosed.
