| Summary: | According to L.A. Paul, undergoing an experience is transformative if we
learn something we cannot learn without having the experience and if it substantially changes our point of view. While the implications of transformative
experiences have primarily been discussed in the context of rational choice,
their underlying concept has also proven fruitful in the context of unchosen
occurrences. The present paper examines mental disorder and its treatment
from a transformative experiential perspective, using major depressive disorder as an exemplary case. It shows that developing a mental disorder typically
requires a transformative experience since the two popular mental disorder
classification systems primarily classify such disorders on an experiential basis. This provides an explanation for the lack of understanding mentally disordered people often face: their experiential state is epistemically inaccessible
for those who have not experienced a similar state before. Furthermore, successful treatment of mental disorder again requires a (personally) transformative experience that results in the disorder’s overcoming. The paper examines pharmacological, psychological, and psychedelic-assisted treatment and
reveals that each of them uses a different transformative route to recovery: a
finding relevant, for example, to ongoing debates in medical ethics about informed consent.
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