The aim of the paper is, on the one hand, to examine the ipseity-hiperreflexivity model of
schizophrenia popularized in contemporary phenomenological psychiatry. On the other hand, it
aims to compare the model with R. D. Laing’s earlier observations about the self. Owning to the
works of the co-authors, Sass and Parnas, the divergent symptoms of schizophrenia spectrum
disorder can be reduced to the minimal self that is a simpler notion than the person. The paper
seeks to give and answer to the question of the relation between the lifeworld and the minimal
self. Sass and Parnas argues, in the prodromal phase of schizophrenia an endogenous selfdisorder can emerge and its recognition could initiate therapeutic interventions prior to the
full-blown psychotic breakdown. Other authors emphasize the primacy of the lifeworld and
identity disorders determined by life circumstances contrary to or besides the role of minimal
self-awareness.