Dysphoria as trans-diagnostic mood symptom and as lived experience. Lessons from prose, poetry and philosophy.

This paper attempts to provide a characterisation of it from a first-person perspective of dysphoria, answering the question 'how it feels like to be dysphoric?'. Starting with a definition of emotions as embodied phenomena that provide the person with a felt motivation to move, a rich characterisation of dysphoria is provided centred on the coenesthetic and kinesthetic feelings inherent to this emotion. To fulfil this task, a selected choice of literary, poetic, theatrical and philosophical texts is used to compensate for the quasi-ineffability of the contrasting feelings inherent to dysphoria. Current definitions of dysphoria only highlight the 'negative' side of dysphoria, including irritability, discontent, surrender and interpersonal resentment. A more accurate characterisation necessitates the recognition of the 'positive' side of dysphoria and the ambiguities and contradictions inherent in this emotion. Dysphoric persons feel burdened by a weight that prevents them from moving and simultaneously incites movement. The inertia that accompanies dysphoria is inextricably tied in with a vital urge, however disordered and purposeless. Dysphoria is experienced both as a deadly stagnation and as a chaotic, wild impulse that brings with it an inane aspiration to explore the darkest parts of one's self in search of a glimmer of meaning and authenticity. This characterisation of dysphoria can help to differentiate it from other emotions such as sadness, anger, anxiety and anguish, and thus to identify it more precisely within the spectrum of mood disorders. • This paper shows the limitations of existing psychopathological definitions of dysphoria that only examines its 'negative' aspects (irritability, discontent, interpersonal resentment, etc.) and not the 'positive' ones that act as factors sustaining this emotion and related dysfunctional behaviour. • A selection of literary texts is analysed to highlight 'what it feels like' to be dysphoric and subjected to phenomenological analysis. • The corporeal feelings related to dysphoria (coenesthetic and kinesthetic aspects) and the movements dictated by this emotion are described in detail. • This allows to highlight the contradictions inherent in dysphoria and the inclusion of its 'positive' aspects - its vitality and the drive it provides to explore obscure territories of the Self in search of a glimmer of authenticity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]