The Swiss psychiatrist Ludwig Binswanger is commonly known as the founder of "existential analysis." The purpose of this article is to introduce the larger scope and relevance of Binswanger's work by drawing, above, all on untranslated texts. The author shows how Binswanger developed a contemporary perspective on self-other interaction with important clinical implications for our understanding of the therapeutic process. The article examines the interaction between the psychotherapist and patient that forms the therapeutic matrix, and argues that Binswanger used elements of Martin Heidegger's thought and Martin Buber's dialogical philosophy to develop an original approach to psychotherapy that has considerable parallels with the work of Harry Stack Sullivan and more recent interpersonal and relational theory.The Swiss psychiatrist, Ludwig Binswanger, is known as the founder of "existential analysis," yet his work is not commonly studied today. Binswanger was introduced to English-speaking

The concept of multiplicity describes the fluid nature of identity and experience in the wake of postmodernity. Yet the question of how we negotiate and maintain our identities, despite our multiplicities, requires phenomenological clarification. I suggest that recognition of multiplicity needs to be combined with an acknowledgement of continuity, however minimal. I maintain that this continuity is evidenced in our pre-reflective self-awareness, embodiment and habitual activities. Our authorship of life narratives and our ability to deliberate and shape our identities takes place against the background of our lived, prereflective experience. I develop the notion of prereflective self-awareness using the work of Sartre, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. I suggest that prereflective self-awareness, embodiment and habitual activity are themselves shaped by our participation in sociocultural frameworks that give meaning to our lives.

No abstract

The interpretive turn in psychology is strongly indebted to the hermeneutic philosophies of Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer. What is less known is the degree to which the interpretive turn is already initiated in the 1920s by the Swiss psychiatrist, Ludwig Binswanger (1881Binswanger ( -1965. For Binswanger, the objective of psychology and psychopathology is to understand how the person exists and relates to others in the world-and this can only be achieved through a situated understanding of the person in his or her life-world. Binswanger is one of the first to recognize and work out the contributions of Husserl's and Heidegger's philosophies for psychology. Using an approach that combines elements from phenomenology, hermeneutics and dialogical philosophy, Binswanger views the person not as an object, but as fundamentally immersed in a world of human relating. Yet Binswanger is not a Heideggerian, and does not identify his work as existential. Instead, he develops a dialogical perspective on human experience that parallels important aspects of Gadamer's hermeneutics. Drawing chiefly on untranslated texts, I maintain that Binswanger's hermeneutics of exploration forms an important, if relatively unknown chapter of the interpretive turn in psychology.

No abstract