Recent theoretical and empirical work indicates renewed interest in the study of subjective experience in psychopathology (1,2). Phenomenological research shown that disturbance of the basic sense of self may be a core marker of the schizophrenia spectrum (3). This selfdisturbance occurs at the tacit, pre-reflective level of selfhood, where it exists a disruption of the sense of ownership of experience, associated with various anomalies of subjective experience. These anomalies include disturbed stream of consciousness, sense of presence, corporeality, self-demarcation and existential reorientation. All of these items are well described in the Examination of Anomalous Self-Experience (EASE) instrument (4). Also, recent researches try to elucidate the neurocognitive underpinnings of this basic self-disturbance (5).

After introducing the classical phenomenological approach about psychosis (Minkowski, Binswanger, Conrad, Tellenbach Blankenburg), we propose to review current theories about altered self-experience (Parnas, Bovet, Sass), and their correlate with neurobiological postulates.