From: Michael Staples <mps-AT-nomos.com>
Subject: FW: Daseinsanalysis & Existential Psychoanalisys
Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 12:30:29 -0400


Figured I would make sure the List got this posting, aglynn. These are only
my thoughts on the subject. Others will undoubtedly have different takes
(some of which may be better than mine).

Michael

----------
From:  Michael Staples
Sent:  Monday, May 17, 1999 11:35 PM
To:  'aglynn'
Subject:  RE: Daseinsanalysis & Existential Psychoanalisys


	Anyone who has personal experience of existential psychoanalytic 
	sessiions and / or sessions at the daseinsanalytic clinic founded by
Medard Boss are 
	especially pleaded to to join in the discussion.

	I have no personal experience with the Daseinsanalytic Clinic, but
to be honest I have always been somewhat dissapointed with Boss's writings.
Perhaps direct experience with him would prove more enlightening. But his
books have, it seemed to me, to be somewhat unconvincing and quite often
only moderately good attempts at bringing Heidegger into the realm of
psychotherapy. That's just my opinion, obviously, but there it is. It seems
as though everyone I have read (Boss, Binswanger, Strauss, Sartre, and the
more contemporary group from the U.S.) all seem to draft Heidegger into the
service of psychotherapy with lackluster results (and I suppose by 'results'
here I am not talking about the ability to bring someone into a DSM-IV
version of mental health but, rather, to apply the Heideggerian point of
view to the psychotherapy environment without loosing the essence of either
the point of view or psychotherapy).

	.  I have been handling myself through 
	psychotropics because the general run of psychiatrists attempt to
understand me in a 
	way that is very alien and almost mythical to me.  But I do need to
deal with my 
	experiences on a more conscious, less chemical basis as well in
order to progress in 
	my self and therefore human understandings.

	Might be interesting for you to elaborate on this word "progress" a
little. When I hear this word I get an image of movement from less-to-more
such that you are making a comment of sorts about your "self" (which you
link to human understandings) is somehow "less" and needs to be made "more".
I'll tell you what comes to mind for me in this...from a Heideggerian point
of view, I think the only "more" that matters is the more that can be
assigned to holding open the clearing of Being. I might need a bit of
straightening out from the group on this, but it seems to me that holding
open the Openness of Being is the basis for authenticity, and as Thomas
Langan writes:

	"The Dasein becomes so involved in the necessary search for bread
and in concern for what "they" say that he ignores above all the reality of
his own existence. The egoist, vaunting his talents and position, is really,
in his "fallen being," the man who has lost sight of himself."
	
	To which he follows by commenting on the notion that "authenticity"
can be held to be lacking the value of  "should" or "should not":

	"...the phenomenological consideration of the human essence as
self-constitutive freedom...cust across the traditional division between
ontology and ethics. This is a sign, as Heidegger sees it, that the
phenomenological analysis is more fundamental than the objective categorical
analysis of the traditional metaphysics. The discoveries of the Existentiale
are, if you will, both ontological and ethical, since the result is the
grasp of the ontological structure of an essence-afree essence, grasped not
as an object to be contemplated, but as a challenge to be lived." 

	Personally, I think that Heidegger knew very well that terms like
"Authentic" and "Inauthentic" (even in German) are value-laden. Though he
never says explicitly, "You SHOULD try to be authentic" (I don't think),
there is a certainly implicit reference I suggest others (Dreyfus) have made
explicit.

	But what does all this mean to psychology? Well...I'm not too sure.
I doubt that it can mean anything like what Freud or Jung or Adler had in
mind. I doubt it can mean anything insurance would reimburse a therapist
for. I doubt it will solve any (at least directly) of your ontic problems.
And thems what says it will (e.g., Medard Boss) may well have delt the whole
point of view mentioned earlier a telling blow.

	Perhaps there is a moral imperative in H. toward authenticity as
being authentically Dasein in a particular way. Will that spell the sort of
"progress" you seek?

	Michael Staples


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