In the mood of the other - emotional contagion, empathic knowledge, and intuitive diagnosis in psychiatry

Sep 28, 2026

Critically examines the phenomenological foundations of intuitive diagnosis in Psychiatry by integrating Max Scheler’s concept of emotional contagion with Edith Stein’s three-stage model of empathy. Argues that emotional contagion provides a pre-reflective, bodily-affective resonance that precedes deeper empathic understanding. Proposes that Stein’s stages—emergence of the other’s experience, imaginative explication, and comprehensive objectification—can clarify the role of empathic immersion in diagnostic assessment, grounded in bodily co-originality.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryHealthcare

FormatPDF

Pages10

Reading Time25 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Key problem in psychiatric methodology

Impact of technology and the DSM “criteriological revolution”

Manual-based objectivity and the exclusion of first-sight diagnosis

TYPE Conceptual Analysis PUBLISHED 19 December 2025 DOI 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1676449 OPEN ACCESS EDITED BY Wataru Sato, RIKEN, Japan REVIEWED BY Laura Fonzi, Independent Researcher, Rome, Italy Nicholas Pang, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Malaysia Marzia Di Girolamo, University of Turin, Italy *CORRESPONDENCE Andrea Altobrando [andrea.altobrando@unipd.it](andrea.altobrando@unipd.it) RECEIVED 30 July 2025 REVISED 10 November 2025 ACCEPTED 25 November 2025 PUBLISHED 19 December 2025 CITATION Altobrando A and Zaninotto L (2025) In the mood of the other: emotional contagion, empathic knowledge, and intuitive diagnosis in psychiatry. Front. Psychol. 16:1676449. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1676449 COPYRIGHT © 2025 Altobrando and Zaninotto. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. In the mood of the other: emotional contagion, empathic knowledge, and intuitive diagnosis in psychiatry Andrea Altobrando 1* and Leonardo Zaninotto 2 1FISPPA Department, University of Padova, Padua, Italy, 2Department of Mental Health, ULSS 6 Eugenea, Padua, Italy In this study we critically examine the phenomenological foundations of intuitive diagnosis in Psychiatry by integrating Max Scheler’s concept of emotional contagion with Edith Stein’s three-stage model of empathy. We argue that what Scheler calls emotional contagion offers a useful pre-reflective, bodily-affective resonance that precedes and facilitates deeper empathic understanding of the subject’s experience. Then, we suggest that Stein’s analysis of empathy, which is based on a three-step process—i.e., the emergence of the other’s experience, its imaginative explication, and the final comprehensive objectification—may account for the role of imaginative empathic immersion in diagnostic assessment. This imaginative engagement, grounded in bodily co-originality, allows clinicians to apprehend the subject’s world beyond mere perceptual awareness. We contend that Scheler’s emotional contagion and Stein’s model of empathy can be productively harnessed within a comprehensive diagnostic framework to provide a raw intuitive and imaginative substrate for further cognitive elaboration. KEYWORDS Max Scheler, Edith Stein, atmospheric diagnosis, diagnostic intuition, empathy, phenomenological psychiatry, emotional contagion 1 Introduction Several ‘classical’ studies have shown that psychiatrists often make their diagnoses within the first few minutes of an interview (Cooper, 1983; Kendell, 1975; Sandifer et al., 1970), usually without any explicit awareness of the process (Gauron and Dickinson, 1966) . Within phenomenological Psychiatry, intuitive diagnosis has been extensively explored (Jaspers, 1913; Minkowski, 1927; Rümke, 1941), being referred to by various terms, such as“atmospheric diagnosis” (Tellenbach, 1968), “diagnosis by intuition” (Wyrsch, 1946),“diagnosis by feeling” (Binswanger, 1924), “diagnostique par pénétration” (Minkowski, 1927), and “knowledge through the relationship”(Schneider, 1925). This phenomenon raises several important questions for psychiatric methodology: what role do the psychiatrist’s first impressions play in the diagnostic process? Are her ‘intuitions’, ‘feelings’, and ‘impressions’reliable? And how do such elements affect the scientific foundations of Psychiatry as a medical discipline? With the advent of modern technologies, Medicine has been overwhelmed by a climate of suspicion toward traditional clinical methods. Physicians began to distrust their own senses, and the classical tools of history-taking and direct phy

FAQs

What is the central aim of the study on intuitive diagnosis in psychiatry?

To critically examine the phenomenological foundations of intuitive diagnosis by linking emotional contagion with a three-stage model of empathy.

How does emotional contagion contribute to diagnostic understanding?

It is argued to offer a pre-reflective, bodily-affective resonance that facilitates deeper empathic comprehension of the subject’s experience.

Which three stages of empathy are used to explain the diagnostic role of imagination?

The model uses (1) emergence of the other’s experience, (2) imaginative explication, and (3) final comprehensive objectification.

Sep 28, 2026

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