Abstract

Moving from a phenomenological exploration of the role of the gaze in psychopathological experience, this chapter investigates the relationship between the sense of possibility (Ratcliffe, 2012), affectivity, and narrative self-understanding. After having provided an outline of the notion of the gaze through Jean-Paul Sartre’s work, I move to illustrate how mental illness may be associated with an alteration, and, in particular, an impoverishment, of one’s sense of possibility, rooted in the presence of certain background affects. I then set to explore how engaging with self-narratives can engender experiences which have the potential to transform those affects and lead to an expansion of one’s sense of possibility.