Developed by Parnas J, Moeller P, Kircher T, Thalbitzer J, Jansson L, Handest P, Zahavi D
Anomalous subjective experiences, described since early 20th century, are thought to be intrinsic to schizophrenia and considered as constituting the phenotypic validity anchor of the schizophrenia spectrum concept. Although neglected in modern psychiatry, due to the dominating behaviouristic approach, they nevertheless have been thoroughly investigated in continental European psychiatry, where it has been shown that their presence antedates future psychosis. Anomalous experiences of self-awareness (self-disorders) are a sub-group of subjective pathology. The EASE is a semi-structured qualitative and semi-quantitative psychometric checklist to examine anomalies of subjective self-experience, published and available in Psychopathology.
The EASE targets the disorders of subjective experience, which are characteristic of the schizophrenia spectrum disorders, especially in their early phases. The checklist is inspired by philosophical phenomenology. Its use requires a certain conceptual and empirical background in addition to practical training.