Temporal Experience in Addiction from Dysregulation to Recovery. Toward a Unified Conceptual Framework

Phenomenological psychopathology considers disturbances in temporal experience as a core of addictive behaviors. While psychological and cognitive neuroscientific research typically focuses on objective measures of temporal distortion, it often bypasses the aspects of lived experience crucial to understanding the existential impact of substance abuse. Employing an applied phenomenological framework and based on a meta-synthesis of existing research, this article examines how the temporal experience of individuals with addiction transforms in recovery. The temporal dysregulation during the illness stage consists of living in the present, dominated by immediate gratification and cyclic routines, with the fragmented space of past experience and a constricted, often inaccessible future. On the other hand, during recovery, individuals with addiction exhibit a notable shift towards temporal coherence, demonstrating increased reflection on past experiences, enriched present awareness, and the renewed ability to envision future possibilities. This claim is justified by the changes in language through which they report their lived experiences of time, and which begins to conceptually resemble the language of the therapists.