Self-continuity across time in schizophrenia: An exploration of phenomenological and narrative continuity in the past and future

Abstract Background Disorders of the self, such as a reduced sense of personal continuity in time, are a core symptom of schizophrenia, but one that is still poorly understood. In the present study, we investigated two complementary aspects of self-continuity, namely phenomenological and narrative continuity , in 27 patients with schizophrenia, and compared them with 27 control participants. Methods Participants were asked to identify important past events and to narrate a story from their life that included these events. They were also asked to imagine important events that might happen in their personal future and to build a narrative of their future life. The vividness of these important life events and the proportion of self-event connections in the narratives were used as a measure of phenomenological and narrative continuity , respectively. Results Our study showed patients with schizophrenia experienced less vivid representations of personally significant events (p = .02) for both temporal directions (past and future) (p  Conclusions These results shed new light on the cognitive mechanisms underlying self-disorders in schizophrenia. The clinical and therapeutic implications of these findings are discussed.