Due to copyright issues, an electronic copy of the thesis must be ordered from the faculty. For the faculty to have time to process the order, the order must be received by the faculty at the latest 2 days before the public defence. Orders received later than 2 days before the defence will not be processed. After the public defence, please address any inquiries regarding the thesis to the candidate.
Trial Lecture – time and place
See Trial Lecture.
Adjudication committee
- First opponent: Professor Andrea Raballo, University of Lugano, Switzerland
- Second opponent: Associate Professor Erling Inge Kvig, UiT The Arctic University of Norway,
- Third member and chair of the evaluation committee: Professor Anne Margrethe Myhre, University of Oslo
Chair of the Defence
Associate Professor Ketil Hanssen-Bauer, University of Oslo
Principal Supervisor
Senior Researcher Paul Møller, Vestre Viken Hospital Trust
Summary
Current research on adults has demonstrated that fundamental disturbances of self-experience, so-called basic self-disturbance (BSD), is central to the pre-psychotic state. BSD refers to various kinds of self-alienation and loss of feeling of natural ‘presence’ in the world, not fully ‘inhabiting’ oneself and one’s body, and not being the ‘owner’ of one’s experiences.
Research on BSD in children and adolescents and its role in psychosis development has been lacking. The aims of the thesis were to investigate how adolescents with BSD at risk of psychosis described verbally their experiences of BSD and based on real time data from app-registrations, the course and stability of BSD in their everyday life. Distinctive words, irregular use of prepositions, shifts of personal pronouns, near-literal use of metaphors, conjunctions, and idiosyncratic use of adjectives were distinctive linguistic features in the adolescents’ descriptions of BSD. These language markers can inform automated language analyses and AI-approaches. Language analyses of SF can provide clearer clinical distinctions between developmental phases which may contribute to earlier identification and treatment of children and adolescents at risk of psychosis.
Analyses of 5000 app-reports showed a consistent short-term and long-term stability of BSD irrespective of time-periods and level of BSD at baseline. This indicates BSD as mainly a trait- factor in young people in pre psychotic phases. Negative emotions were positively associated with BSD. Being alone was associated with higher intensity of BSD than being in the company of close others.
The doctoral thesis indicates that social relationships and other environmental factors should be part of the clinical approach to SF so that psychosocial factors that contribute positively or negatively to the development of SF can be identified.
Additional information
Contact the research support staff.