Abstract

Research in phenomenology and philosophy of psychiatry has suggested that psychopathological disturbances of experience often involve an alteration of one's ‘sense of possibility’, dependent upon the presence of specific ‘existential feelings’ (Ratcliffe 2012). In this paper I provide an extended account of how the engagement with certain narratives can lead to a transformation of one's sense of possibility by eliciting affective experiences that are not consonant with the person's existential feelings. More precisely, I claim that, even when the experience of some types of emotion is generally precluded by a restricted sense of possibility, such emotions may be aroused by particular self-narratives, and I explore how this dynamic can give rise to enduring and wide-ranging affective changes.