The World of the Compulsive.

Abstract

The World of the Compulsive* by V. £. von Qebsattel I The ProblemWHAT ALWAYS FASCINATES US in encountering the compulsive person is the unpenetrated, perhaps impenetrable, quality of his being different. Seventy years of clinical work and scientific research have not altered this reaction. Kept alive by the contradiction between the intimate closeness of the presence of a fellow man and the strange remoteness of a mode of being completely different from our own, the affect of psychiatric amazement never ceases. This excitement constantly thrusts upon us the question about the world in which the compulsive lives; for our world, in which he is found, does not seem to be his. Actually, the contradiction found in the phenomenon of the compulsive does not distinguish him from others encountered by the psychiatrist; but the lucidity with which the compulsive illuminates his own abnormality, without finding it out, and the consequently increasing paradox of his existence, only heightens, if possible, the acuity of the psychiatric affect and keeps it going with particular emphasis.The focus of our inquiry is the compulsive person in toto and primarily the special way of existing by which he is set into a specific world of being (Daseinswelt) different from our own. In this, we wish to go beyond the mere • Translated by SYLVIA KOPPEL and ERNEST ANGEL. [This article has been considerably abridged. The original paper contained three case histories. Only one is reproduced in this translation, the one which best illustrates the paper's concepts.-EDITORS] The bibliographic reference is Viktor E.

Dysfunctional personal experiences and existential dilemmas.

“…This is recognized in the intense need of avoiding experiences that confront the person with new social and interpersonal possibilities, future risks, uncertainty, expansion of goals, and new sensations or feelings that cannot always be controlled. This idea is also supported by Von Gebsattel (1958), who stated that:…”

Max Scheler’s theory of the hierarchy of values and emotions and its relevance to current psychopathology

“…The other explanations for anorexia nervosa -phobia, obsessional neurosis, depressive equivalent, body image disorder -cannot do justice to the psychopathological facts. For example, Von Gebsattel (1938Gebsattel ( /1958) made out a case for the obsessive-compulsive subject's being at root disgusted with the seediness of everything, and engaged in cleaning rituals to ward all this off. But the anorexic, in the extract above at least, makes no mention of the sliminess or filthiness of food but is rather preoccupied with its non-vital nature.…”

The nature of delusion: psychologically explicable? psychologically inexplicable? philosophically explicable? Part 2

“…Most, however, placed their reliance on the trio of acknowledged founders of the philosophical phenomenological movement – Husserl, Scheler and Heidegger. Binswanger (1957, 1965) vacillated between the influences of Husserl and Heidegger; Wiggins and Schwartz (2007) opted for Husserl’s philosophy; Kuhn (1952) and Kraus (2007) saw Heidegger’s philosophy as the way forward for their purposes; and Kurt Schneider (1920/2012), Straus (1938/2012) and von Gebsattel (1938/2012) were acquainted with Scheler’s early work and applied it to psychopathology, though not specifically to delusion.…”