<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Psychiatric phenomenology emerged from the willingness to spread Husserl’s program of going back to the things themselves into the psychiatric field. However, what this initial will then became is not very clear. We show that if this will to go back to the things themselves really enabled to bring phenomenology and psychiatry together (especially by the Swiss psychiatrist L. Binswanger), the thing to whom we have to go back changed over time: first conceived as the experience lived by people with a psychiatric disorder, it was then conceived as the psychiatric disorder itself. We show that both of these ideas are inadequate. Our thesis is that psychiatric phenomenology has to be considered as belonging to the hermeneutical field (as defined by Ricoeur and Gadamer). We show that this hypothesis leads to a more insightful understanding of what is psychiatric phenomenology and what status we should concede to it.</p></abstract>

Psychiatric phenomenology emerged from the willingness to spread Husserl’s program of going back to the things themselves into the psychiatric field. However, what this initial will then became is not very clear. We show that if this will to go back to the things themselves really enabled to bring phenomenology and psychiatry together (especially by the Swiss psychiatrist L. Binswanger), the thing to whom we have to go back changed over time: first conceived as the experience lived by people with a psychiatric disorder, it was then conceived as the psychiatric disorder itself. We show that both of these ideas are inadequate. Our thesis is that psychiatric phenomenology has to be considered as belonging to the hermeneutical field (as defined by Ricoeur and Gadamer). We show that this hypothesis leads to a more insightful understanding of what is psychiatric phenomenology and what status we should concede to it.

The Issue of the “Thing Itself” in Psychiatric Phenomenology and Existential Analysis

Phainomenon

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Psychiatric phenomenology emerged from the willingness to spread Husserl’s program of going back to the things themselves into the psychiatric field. However,...

The Issue of the “Thing Itself” in Psychiatric Phenomenology and Existential Analysis

Published Online: Oct 14, 2021

Page range: 13 - 28

Received: Sep 10, 2018

Accepted: Dec 18, 2018

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/phainomenon-2018-0007

Keywords
Daseinsanalyse, existential analysis, psychiatric phenomenology, Ludwig Binswanger

© 2018 Camille Abettan, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

The Issue of the “Thing Itself” in Psychiatric Phenomenology and Existential Analysis

Published Online: Oct 14, 2021

Page range: 13 - 28

Received: Sep 10, 2018

Accepted: Dec 18, 2018

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/phainomenon-2018-0007

KeywordsDaseinsanalyse, existential analysis, psychiatric phenomenology, Ludwig Binswanger

© 2018 Camille Abettan, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
Daseinsanalyse, existential analysis, psychiatric phenomenology, Ludwig Binswanger