albeit ultra-high risk (UHR) mental state for developing a psychosis is currently defined mainly by attenuated (APS) and transient psychotic symptoms (BLIPS), subtle not-yet psychotic anomalies of self-experience occur in a substantial proportion of prodromal patient even prior to any detectable diagnostic symptom.

in-depth, multiple, phenomenologically-driven psychiatric interviews were conducted in a sample of about 14 first admitted prodromal patients and their families, together with standardized psychometric evaluation.

Subjects' detailed first-person self-descriptions were collected and transcribed in the clinical files and re-evaluated, specifically targeting the biographical emergence of disorders of self-experience, interpersonal attunement and axiological idiosyncrasy.

recurrent patterns of morbid self-experience were identified, especially inhering a fading of the basic sense of self-intimacy (i.e. diminished ipseity or self-affection) and a related strive to maintain the coherent self-narrative. Such patterns were meaningfully connected with the current clinical symptomatology and interpersonal functioning of the patients. Phenomenological-oriented interviewing revealed dramatic effects in modulating contingent subjective self-stigmatization and environmental expressed emotion.

not-yet psychotic anomalies of subjective experience are relevant in the characterization of UHR mental states and are subtended by profound transformation of the basic structures of consciousness (i.e. intentionality, temporality, spatiality, embodiment). Such prereflective and near-ineffable experiences can be grasped by means of a phenomenological approach.