Josef Parnas

Clinical Professor

Department of Clinical Medicine, Section of Neurology, Psychiatry and Sensory Sciences
Psykiatrisk Center Hvidovre
Brøndbyøstervej 160, 2605 Brøndby

Phone: +45 36 32 38 17
Phone (Reception desk): +45 -
E-mail: josef.stefan.stanislaw.parnas@regionh.dk

Current research

Josef Parnas primarily works on the following projects:

• Phenomenologically oriented interviews with first admission schizophrenia spectrum patients, with special emphasis on early, non-psychotic anomalies of self-awareness.
• Phenomenological and conceptual analyses of the empirical data collected from first onset schizophrenia spectrum patients with the purpose of defining anomalies of self-awareness, illustrated by prototypical cases, delineation, and differential-diagnostic guidelines. The purpose of this work is to construct a reliable psychometric research instrument to register anomalies of self-experience.
• Statistical analyses of empirical data from relevant groups of patients and cohorts with high familial risk for developing schizophrenia in order to examine relations between different aspects of anomalies of subjective experience, other psychopathological features and extra-clinical measures (e.g. family disposition to schizophrenia, disorders of attention and eye movement).
• Preparing a new study aiming at first onset schizophrenia spectrum patients with the purpose of examining the correlation between anomalies of self-experience and non-clinical measures such as profiles of neuropsychological dysfunctions, structural and functional brain alterations, and EEG-patterns with or without perceptual stimulation.
• Continuation of Copenhagen Infant Follow-up Study, a longitudinal interdisciplinary prospective study of offspring of schizophrenic mothers, followed from birth until their current age of 13-14.
• Preparation of a 4-year follow-up of a group of 155 patients (approximately 100 within the schizophrenia spectrum) in order to assess course, predictive value of disorders of self-awareness and correlations between psychopathological and neuropsychological variables.