In another paper, she called for a revival of the phenomenological tradition to which Roland Kuhn had belonged. “A ‘depressive’ does not just enact the symptoms,” she wrote. “She experiences the world differently. She uses language differently. She experiences emotions differently.” By ignoring these sorts of experiences—the “unclassified residuum,” as William James called it—doctors risk misunderstanding why mental illness can be so isolating, altering people’s lives in ways that cannot be captured only by symptoms.
