Husserl: Phenomenology and Psychology

Exploring phenomenological philosophy as it relates to psychiatry and the social world, this book establishes a common language between psychiatrists, anti-psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers. It is an inter-disciplinary work by phenomenological philosophers, psychiatrists, and psychologists to discover the essence and foundations of social psychiatry. Using the phenomenology of Husserl as a point of departure, the meanings of empathy, interpersonal understanding, we-intentionality, ethics, citizenship and social inclusion are investigated in relation to psychopathology, nosology, and clinical research. This work, drawing upon (...) the rich classical and contemporary phenomenological tradition, touching on a broad range of thinkers such as Deleuze, Levinas, and R.D. Laing, also explicates how phenomenology is a method capable of capturing the human condition and its intricate relation to the social world and mental illness. (shrink)

Edmund Husserls Phänomenologie und Sigmund Freuds Psychoanalyse sind zwei große Denktraditionen des 20. Jahrhunderts. Erstmals wird in diesem Buch die lebendige problemgebundene Beziehung zwischen beiden untersucht, und zwar ausgehend von Husserls genetischer Phänomenologie. Im Fokus stehen drei große Erfahrungsbereiche des Menschen: die Assoziation, die Phantasie und der Trieb. Wie sich zeigt, spielen alle drei eine Schlüsselrolle, sowohl für Husserls als auch für Freuds Denken. Die Autorin hat für ihre Studie veröffentlichte wie auch unveröffentlichte Texte aus dem Werk Husserls berücksichtigt und (...) die Ergebnisse lassen die Phänomenologie in einem neuen Licht erscheinen. So rücken in diesem Buch, anders als im allgemein-philosophischen Verständnis von Intentionalität, spezifische Formen der phantasmatischen und imaginären Intentionalität in den Vordergrund. Auf diese Weise betrachtet, zeigt sich die subjektive Erfahrung als eine menschliche Entwicklungsstruktur, die unter einer doppelten Ordnung steht: Wir und unsere Welt sind nicht nur durch Wahrnehmung strukturiert, sondern auch durch imaginäre Leistungen, durch triebhafte Tendenzen und unbewusste Wünsche. Die Autorin findet dafür den Begriff der Bi-Valenz, der Zweiwertigkeit der personalen Realität. Mit dieser Untersuchung werden zwei Ziele erreicht. Einerseits befreit die Autorin das Trieb-Verständnis der Psychoanalyse von seinem naturalistischen Rest, andererseits eröffnet sie für die Phänomenologie einen neuen Bereich anschaulicher Erfahrung: das dynamische Unbewusste. Das Medium dieser Erfahrung ist eine starke, produktive Phantasie, die aus triebhaften Quellen schöpft und unsere Realität mit-gestaltet. Der Band richtet sich an Studierende und Wissenschaftler, die sich für genetische Phänomenologie und die Philosophie der Psychoanalyse interessieren. (shrink)

Two theories of subjectivity are born with the twentieth century: Husserlian phenomenology and Freudian psychoanalysis. Though sharing the same object, their paths never cross. In order to understand their relation, we have to uncover their common source: nineteenth century philosophical psychology.

The relevance of a purely descriptive phenomenology to psychiatry is overshadowed by naturalistic approaches that are both explanatory and predictive. A naturalized transcendental phenomenology, however, carries with it the possibility of explaining and predicting not only the nature of normal subjective experience but also the origin of phenomenological psychopathology in a manner acceptable by scientific standards. A purely mathematical naturalized phenomenology remains in the phenomenological sphere, does not rely on neuroscientific data in its development, is consistent with the Husserlian view (...) of man as free and capable of using reason to influence behavior and focusses on temporality in its definition of normal subjective experience and phenomenological psychopathology. Because what is being naturalized is subjective experience and not any part of the physical world, the project it is not meant to replace the natural science’s understanding of psychopathology but to provide a complementary view that is acceptable by scientific standards. (shrink)

Gibson defined affordances as action possibilities directly offered to an animal by the environment. Ambitiously, affordances are meant to show the inadequacy of the subjective-objective dichotomy in the study of cognition. Armed with similar concerns, some neo-Gibsonians recently thought of affordances as latent dispositions existing independently of individual organisms or whole species. It is no coincidence that critics had, on several occasions, objected that this theoretical stance dramatically neglects the role of the perceiver in the emergence of affordances. In this (...) paper, we provide a phenomenological characterization of the perceiver’s role in affordance perception. Specifically, we borrow from Husserlian phenomenology to characterize two features of affordance perception that can enrich our understanding of the individual’s engagement with the environment, namely, its affective and temporal aspects. Taking an everyday activity such as rock climbing as a case example, we show that phenomenological investigations, if not misinterpreted as mere introspection, can represent an ally for ecological psychologists. (shrink)

El propósito de este artículo es presentar una aproximación fenomenológica a la experiencia intersubjetiva en contraste a las teorías de la mente y a como estas conciben dicho tipo de experiencia. Se identificará un supuesto esencial de estas teorías según el cual todo tipo de intersubjetividad supone una inferencia y, por lo tanto, elementos normativos. Se argumentará que las investigaciones de Husserl a propósito del concepto de “sentido noemático”, en relación con su concepción del horizonte experiencial, revelan un tipo de (...) experiencia constitutiva e intersubjetiva que es condición de posibilidad de la normatividad supuesta por los teóricos de la mente. Esto sugiere un camino a seguir para lograr encontrar soluciones a cuestiones escépticas tales como el solipsismo y la existencia del mundo exterior. -/- The purpose of this paper is to present a phenomenological approach to intersubjective experience contrasting it with the theories of mind and how them conceive such kind of experience. It will be identified an essential presupposition of these theories according to which all kind of intersubjectivity involve an inference, and therefore, normative elements. It will be argued that Husserl’s investigations regarding the notion of “noematic sense”, related with his concept of experiential horizon, disclose a kind of constitutive and intersubjective experiences which serves as a possibility condition of the normativity which is took for granted by the theories of mind. This suggests a road to follow when trying to find solutions to skeptical problems such as solipsism and the existence of the external world. (shrink)

Following up from the previous book, Human Emotions and the Origins of Bioethics, this volume focuses on four psychological problems, anxiety, narcissism, restlessness, and emotional numbness, and explores how these problems influence bioethical issues and what bioethics can do to fix them. The Role of Bioethics in Emotional Problems presents a phenomenological exploration of emotional intention and describes how one's choices can determine a better relationship to themselves and their community. Not only does this book provide the reader with an (...) exhaustive account of the philosophical and psychological meaning of practical intentionality within Husserl's phenomenology, but it also applies Husserl's ethics to contemporary studies of human emotions and bioethical problems. Offering a non-reductionist model for an interdisciplinary inquiry into an emotional experience, it integrates clinical practice and articulates foundational knowledge of human emotional life at a professional level. Aimed at students of philosophy, psychology, psychotherapy, and bioethics, this book is a unique phenomenological dialogue between these disciplines on emotional well-being. (shrink)

From Kant’s transcendental idealism to Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology, how was the relationship between the transcendental I and empirical subjectivity determined, and how has it evolved? It is this crucial and complex question that my contribution intends to address. This endeavor will require a special focus on the nature and content of internal experience, as well as a thorough consideration of what the “outer man” is with respect to transcendental subjectivity. Furthermore, from an epistemological point of view, it is the scientific (...) status of psychology and anthropology that will thus be subject to clarification. (shrink)

Cognitive psychology is one of the most significant areas of modern science related to the creation of artificial intelligence. The multifactorial conditionality of cognition is captured in variety of philosophical concepts, some of which can have applied meaning, including for cognitive psychology. The article considers two approaches that address diametrically opposite factors affecting cognitive activity. On the one hand, the diversity of cognition phenomena – from simple to the most complex – depends on the psycho-physiological processes associated ultimately with physical (...) energy. E. Mach based his concept on the ontology of psychophysiological parallelism. Back in the early 20th century, he designed the possibility of technical embodying of the results of his research on various phenomena and mechanisms of human cognitive activity. On the other hand, in the first decades of the 20th century, Husserl claims to create his own methodology for psychological science, which simultaneously appears as the theoretical level of this field of science due to the fact that it explores the essence of the entire variety of cognitive phenomena, such as consciousness in its various variations, mental states, values and logical structure. Ideas/meanings peculiar only to human cognition acquire the character of “ideal objectivity” through written language. Written language, according to Husserl, is a way of virtual timeless storage and increment of ideas and meanings. At the same time, it can also become a means of their material, including technical, implementation. Mach in his methodology focuses on the physical, physiological, and biological aspects of the process of cognition; Husserl focused on existential and humanitarian factors that give cognitive activity a proper human character. This is the alternative of these approaches, which does not exclude the possibility of their mutual complementarity. (shrink)

Stein’s theory of empathy lies at the intersection of the phenomenological findings of E. Husserl and M. Scheler. By presenting the issue of “empathy” in a broader framework, including intentionality, the originality of experience, the issue of personality and the individual identity, as well as the so-called world of values, namely the culture, I argue for a dynamic, process-oriented concept of dealing with feelings, namely diapathy. -/- Koncepcja Edyty Stein rozumienia drugiego człowieka jest znana z jej dysertacji O zagadnieniu wczucia. (...) Niemniej, gruntowne przebadanie struktury osobowości ludzkiej, jakie podjęła w Filozofii psychologii i humanistyki, rzuca nowe światło na tę kwestię. Stein dokonuje swoistej syntezy Husserlowskiego prymatu prawdy i Schelerowskiej koncepcji miłości, unikając przy tym idealizmu i woluntaryzmu, którym obarczone są te stanowiska. Steinowska koncepcja znajduje kontynuację w fenomenologii M. Merleau-Ponty’ego i R. Barbarasa. (shrink)

Si bien no es habitual pensar a Hayek en términos de realismo, sino comprenderlo como neokantiano, presentaremos la interpretación realista fenomenológica de Hayek que ofrece Zanotti a lo largo de su obra. Señalaremos los aspectos centrales de la epistemología de Hayek y la lectura realista fenomenológica como una posición superadora tanto del positivismo como de una hermenéutica relativista.

This article explores the development of the concept of Phenomenological Psychology in the work of the philosopher Edmund Husserl and, more specifically, in the work "Phenomenological Psychology" that corresponds to vol. IX of the complete works of the philosopher, denominated Husserliana. We present the husserlian through the formation of the concept of Phenomenological Psychology and how its understanding makes possible answers to questions about psychology scientificity, which has been present since its foundation as a modern science, at the end of (...) the XIX century. We conclude that it is necessary to construct an intermediate field between Phenomenology and scientific studies in Psychology, through the rediscovery of Husserl's theory over the possibility of a Scientific Psychology of eidetic-transcendental bases and the usage of the phenomenological method, as well as the intersubjective character of human psyque as the basis of this possibility. (shrink)

Common sense takes the physical world to be populated by mind-independent particulars. Why and with what right do we hold this view? Early phenomenologists argue that the common sense view is our natural starting point because we experience objects as mind-independent. While it seems unsurprising that one can perceive an object being red or square, the claim that one can experience an object as mind-independent is controversial. In this paper I will articulate and defend the claim that we can experience (...) mind-independence by mainly drawing on the work of the Gestalt psychologist Karl Duncker who, in turn, built on Husserl’s work. In the development of this claim the notion of a limit – either a maximum or minimum – of perception will play an important role. (shrink)

In this paper, I show how Husserl, via the method of the epoche, dissolves Merleau-Ponty’s starting point in the gestalt structuralism of primary corporeal intersubjectivity, revealing a more radically temporal foundation that has nothing of gestalt form in it. Whereas for Merleau-Ponty, the dependency of the parts belonging to a whole is a presupposed unity, for Husserl, a whole instantiates a temporal story unfolding each of its parts out of the others associatively-synthetically as the furthering of a continuous progression or (...) enrichment of sense. As a consequence of the deconstruction of the gestalt, Husserl’s notion of the foreign must be understood in different terms than that of corporeal otherness. He offers an otherness to self that manifests itself as a thematic belonging to self whose self-similarity presupposes and is built from this irreducible foreignness. This is not a privileging the same over the different , but rather a situating of the binary in a more insubstantial and therefore more intimate space of relationship than that of corporeal embodiment. (shrink)

Common sense takes the physical world to be populated by mind-independent particulars. Why and with what right do we hold this view? Early phenomenologists argue that the common sense view is our natural starting point because we experience objects as mind-independent. While it seems unsurprising that one can perceive an object being red or square, the claim that one can experience an object as mind-independent is controversial. In this paper I will articulate and defend the claim that we can experience (...) mind-independence by mainly drawing on the work of the Gestalt psychologist Karl Duncker who, in turn, built on Husserl’s work. In the development of this claim the notion of a limit – either a maximum or minimum – of perception will play an important role. (shrink)

This paper argues that 'duality' accounts of time, as exemplified by Henri Bergson's, Edmund Husserl's, and John McTaggart's ideas, parallel the decomposition of temporal experience in depressive psychosis into objective and subjective dimensions of time. The paper also proposes to comprehend the full-fledged depressive temporal delusion, in which the subjective flow of time comes to a standstill, via the idea of a double orientation to reality characteristic of schizophrenic delusions. In the depressive temporal delusion a person claims that time is (...) not moving while simultaneously her cognitive orientation in temporal surroundings remains largely unaffected, hence the double orientation. The juxtaposition of temporal experience in depression with the temporal disorientation in dementia enables us to situate the depressive delusion regarding the flow of time in the middle of a proposed scale of the disintegration of normal temporal experience. (shrink)

Translation from German of a lit review (summarizing and evaluating) in the psychology of thinking. Focuses on experimental psychology and addresses problems of self-observation (Lipps, Ach, Judd, Gibson, Wm. James, Kiesow), reproduction (Semon, Forel, Detto), the influence of an assigned task and capacities for concentration (Ach, Bleuler, Heilbronner), perseveration (Heilbronner, Stransky, Kiesow), a few miscellaneous issues Watt couldn't fit into these categories (Aliotta, Lobsien, Ranschburg, C. Jung), diagnosing a state of affairs (Wertheimer and Klein, C. Jung), and psychopathology (Heilbronner, Stransky, (...) Reich). (shrink)

This paper offers both a phenomenologically psychological and phenomenologically transcendental account of the constitution of the unconscious. Its phenomenologically psychological portion is published here as Part I, while its phenomenologically transcendental portion will be published in the next volume of this journal as Part II. Part I first clarifies the issues involved in Husserl's differentiation of the respective contents and methodologies of psychological and transcendental phenomenology. On the basis of this clarification I show that, in marked contrast to the prevailing (...) approach to the unconscious in the phenomenological literature, an approach that focuses on the emotive and aesthetic factors in the descriptive account of the constitution of an unconscious, there are cognitive factors that have yet to be descriptively accounted for by phenomenological psychology. Part I concludes with a phenomenologically psychological account of the role these cognitive factors play in the constitution of an unconscious. Part II will show how Jung's claims regarding a dimension of unconscious contents that lacks genealogical links to consciousness proper, that is, the "collective unconscious, " can be phenomenologically accounted for if Jung's methodological differentiation of empirical and interpretative approaches to the unconscious is attended to and such attention is guided by the phenomenologically transcendental critique of the emotive and aesthetic limitations of both the Freudian and heretofore Husserlian accounts of the descriptive genesis of something like an unconscious. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 94, Issue 3, pp 391 - 409 The author outlines a provisional phenomenology of problem solving. He begins by reviewing the history of problem-solving psychology, focusing on the Gestalt approach, which emphasizes the influence of prior knowledge and the occurrence of sudden insights. He then describes problem solving as a process unfolding in a field of consciousness against a background of unconscious knowledge, which encodes action patterns, schemata, and affordances. A global feeling of wrongness or tension is (...) resolved by a series of field transitions, which are guided by peripheral experiences of coherence or “rightness.” The author treats the distinction between reproductive thought and productive thought as a difference in field structure. With reproductive thoughts and actions we perform operations to solve a problem in a semi-automatic sequence. In productive thought, by contrast, a kind of parallel search occurs. This may explain the otherwise obscure phenomenology of struggling to break an impasse. (shrink)

Husserl famously retracted his early portrayal, in Logische Untersuchungen, of phenomenology as empirical psychology. Previous scholarship has typically understood this transcendental turn in light of the Ideen’s revised conception of the ἐποχή, and its distinction between noesa and noemata. This essay thematizes the evolution of the concept of mental acts in Husserl’s work as a way of understanding the shift. I show how the recognition of the pure ego in Ideen I and II enabled Husserl to radically alter his conception (...) of mental acts, coming to understand them all in terms of genuine acts in a way that had been essentially precluded for descriptive psychologists so long as the pure ego was denied. This reading challenges a widespread assumption in the secondary literature that “mental act” is a merely technical term or misnomer. (shrink)

Husserl focused perhaps more than any other philosopher on the relationship between philosophy and psychology. This problem was important to him because the European project of universal science must include sciences of consciousness that address questions of meaning, value and purpose so crucial for humanity. This paper provides a sketch of the later Husserl’s thinking on this issue in order to clarify the relationships among transcendental philosophy as the mother of the sciences, psychology as the foundational mental science, and the (...) various regional sciences of persons. Radicalizing and extending the transcendental tradition to free philosophy from naturalism, Husserl developed methods and fundamental concepts for understanding consciousness in its distinctive world constituting function. In parallel fashion, Husserl traced the historical failures of psychology to its naturalistic philosophy, from which he liberated the discipline by means of phenomenological reflections on the intentional property of its subject matter. This pure focus on mental processes resulted in the clarification of the transcendental phenomenological foundation of psychology as well as a recognition of the paradoxical manner in which psychological processes are both world constituting and mundanely present in the lives of persons. The apperceptive synthesis of transcendental consciousness and mundane embodiment in the identification of the person is proposed as essential for a non-naturalistic, intentional psychology, which provides appropriate concepts and the method of intentional analysis for such sciences of persons as sociology, history, literary studies, and religious studies. The problems, means, and inevitable inadequacies of communicating transcendental insights in language are discussed. Analysis of the complexity of living persons discloses their transcendental dimension in the manifolds their mundane activities and in their products, including use, cultural, and art objects as well as social institutions. Attention is drawn to resources in phenomenology beyond Husserl and in the genuine psychological intuitions of non-phenomenologists for generating non-naturalistic, phenomenologically grounded person sciences. (shrink)

El problema del psicologismo es una de las constantes del pensamiento husserliano y a partir de 1900 acompaña su desarrollo. Con el descubrimiento de la reducción fenomenológica, en torno a 1906, Husserl reconoce y pasa a combatir una nueva forma de psicologismo, el psicologismo trascendental. A partir de los años 20 Husserl desarrolla el programa de una psicología fenomenológica. En el presente trabajo se estudia el modo en que se relacionan la psicología fenomenológica y el psicologismo trascendental. The problem of (...) psychologism is a recurring one in Husserls thought and since 1900 it has accompanied its development. With the findings of the phenomenological reduction, around 1906, Husserl recognizes and starts arguing against a new kind of psychologism, namely transcendental psychologism. Starting in the 1920s, Husserl develops the program for a phenomenological psychology. This paper aims at investigating how phenomenological psychology and transcendental psychologism are related. O problema do psicologismo é uma das constantes do pensamento husserliano, e a partir de 1900 acompanha seu desenvolvimento. Com o descobrimento da redução fenomenológica, por volta de 1906, Husserl reconhece e passa a combater uma nova forma de psicologismo, o psicologismo transcendental. A partir dos anos 20, Husserl desenvolve o programa de uma psicologia fenomenológica. No presente trabalho estuda-se o modo pelo qual se relacionam a psicologia fenomenológica e o psicologismo transcendental. (shrink)

Aron Gurwitsch wants to introduce a theory of organization developed by Gestalt psychology into Husserlian phenomenology. The problem is to show how it is possible to introduce a theory developed within a positive science into philosophical phenomenology. His solution is to show that aspects of this theory already are or can be phenomenological through what he calls an incipient phenomenological reduction. Specifically, it is the dismissal of the constancy hypothesis in which he identifies the possibility moving from an explanatory science (...) to a descriptive one. If the temptation can be resisted of returning to an explanatory approach and description can be radicalized, Gurwitsch believes that this reduction can become phenomenological and even attain transcendental levels. This possibility of reduction makes it possible for scientists, especially psychologists, to have a firsthand understanding of phenomenology, perhaps to convince them of this approach and realize the continuity of philosophy and the sciences and the need to maintain cooperation via phenomenology. (shrink)

Husserl's phenomenology provides theory for empirical science and other practices in the form of transcendental philosophy after Kant. This phenomenology is a reflection on mental objects in relation to mental processes, some of which are shared in culture: a theoretical framework that grounds and co-ordinates theory-production for empirical practice. The importance of the original work of Edmund Husserl for contemporary empirical psychology is that it provides the conceptual justification for the methods employed and the interpretative stances taken. Informed theoretically by (...) Husserl's phenomenology, empirical psychology is thus a discipline grounded and co-ordinated by essences. Essences are about the being of consciousness connected with other consciousness and mental senses, expressed as various forms of intentionality in connection with sense and meaning. The aim of this paper is to clarify some key features of Ideas I rather than to comment on the quality of the translation by Dahlstrom or the closeness of the readings of leading phenomenological psychologists to the original. (shrink)

En este trabajo hablamos de la posibilidad de una psicología fenomenológica,no como oportunidad de refundición del proyecto husserliano, sino comoplan de revisión de los fundamentos de una psicología de confección naturalista a partir de un tratamiento estrictamente fenomenológico. Esta revisión crítica, operada por Husserl, dialogará muy de cerca con las tesis que W. Dilthey desenvuelve en 1894, bajo el signo de una psicología descriptiva. Es nuestra intención mostrar, una vez ponderadas las insuficiencias evidenciadas por la perspectiva diltheyniana, la utilidad incuestionable (...) de la psicología fenomenológica como plataforma y vía de acceso indirecto para una auténtica filosofía fenomenológica.In this paper, we address the possibility of a phenomenological psychology,not having in mind a re-establishment of the husserlian project, but as plan torevise, from a strictly phenomenological approach, the basis of a naturalistic psychology. Such a critical revise, operated by Husserl, will dialogue closely with the thesis developed by W. Dilthey in 1894, under the title of a descriptive psychology. It´s our purpose to explain, given the insufficiency shown by Dilthey’s own perspective, the unquestionable utility of this phenomenological psychology as groundwork and indirect access way to a genuine phenomenological philosophy. (shrink)

The magical number three has provided the template for this comparative study of Freudian psycho-analysis and Husserlian phenomenology. "Three" should be considered the number of dialectics; the method in the study to let three distinct thematisations succeed each other should find its legitimation in dialectics. The relationship between psycho-analysis and phenomenology as that between two dialectic theories might well call for a dialectic interpretation. It should be difficult from a straightforward and unambiguous interpretation to give full credit to the rich (...) and equivocal meaning of psycho-analysis and phenomenology. I hope to have shown in the presentation above, that it is possible by accentuating different sides of the two scientific disciplines to reach different conclusions regarding their relationship. For a full account of this relationship these different conclusions should be placed together and viewed in their internal coherence as a dialectical unity. Thus none of the three sections of the text should be considered apart from the others. In the first section of the paper, the first thematisation, I tried to spell out the discrepancies between Freud and Husserl as clearly as possible. The point of departure here was the Freudian notion of the "psychical apparatus," and Husserl's doctrine of "intentional consciousness." The models built around these central notions can be shown to have a paradigmatic meaning for the development of Freud's and Husserl's psychological projects. Conceiving the subject as psychical apparatus, Freud thought it possible to make psychology a natural science. The subject could be treated like a mechanical apparatus, that is a machine admitting the general laws of motion. - In contrast, Husserl thought psychology should depart from natural science in its scientific selfunderstanding, and join the humanities instead. Psychology's departure from natural science, Husserl found legitimized in the subject's essential character of intentional consciousness. According to Husserl, man as a conscious being could not be reduced to a thing in the natural world. On the contrary, the aprioric basis for the world should be found in intentional consciousness, which constitutes the "world" as a meaningful coherence related to the subject. Freud's and Husserl's conceptions of psychology were traced to historical roots in respectively positivism, naturalism and mechanical materialism on the one hand, and rationalism, humanism and idealism on the other. In this first interpretation the relationship between psycho-analysis and phenomenology seemed to be antithetical, the two theoretical projects representing opposite poles with regard to cartesian dualism. Although in some ways caricaturing the theories in this one-sided interpretation, I tried to show, that such interpretation is possible with bases in the texts of Freud and Husserl. The decided one-sidedness of the first thematisation should, however, be balanced by the competing interpretation in the second section of the paper. In the second thematisation, I tried to show, that both psycho-analysis and phenomenology in their concrete psychological projects went beyond their points of departure. Although Freud as a scientist of the 19th century naturally found his theoretical language in the successful natural sciences, from which his scientific career started, he decisively broke with this frame of reference in his descriptions of the pathological problems from his clinical praxis. In contrast to the abstract metapsychology of the psychical apparatus, Freud in his clinical psychology departed from mechanism in his attempts to interpret the meaning of the patient's neurotic symptom. The clinical attitude of Freud might resemble phenomenologists' openness towards the meaning of the phenomena, and the case-histories of Freud often read like clinical analyses stemming from existential- phenomenological psychiatrists. - Correspondingly, although Husserl started from the tradition of German philosophy of consciousness, also he can be seen to go beyond the premises of his wellsprings. Starting with a notion of intentionality as consciousness's active positing meaningful objects, Husserl later was led to consider a deeper level of intentionality, a "functioning intentionality," that would situate the subject in a "world" prior to any thematic perceptual act. With the notion of functional intentionality and its further development in Merleau-Ponty's philosophy of the "body-subject," phenomenology seems to have come close to the Freudian doctrine of the unconscious. From this second interpretation it seemed to follow, that a meeting between psycho-analysis and phenomenology should be possible, by cutting off the mechanistic parts from psychoanalysis and the idealistic parts from phenomenology. The hindrance for such meeting should apparently be found in the divergent theoretical prejudices stemming from the ideological climates in which the theories were hatched. None of these two apparently contradictory interpretations, that of the first and second thematisation, should, however, rule out the other. To the question which interpretation is the right one, we should answer "both... and," or perhaps better "Neither... nor." Freud and Husserl in fact held contradictory views in their explicit scientific self-understanding. On the other hand, much of the controversy was caused by theoretical prejudices not essential to the central enterprise of psycho-analysis and phenomenology. And yet, the theoretical work of Freud and Husserl should be considered in its entirety, not omitting parts that do not fit the interpretative context. Freud's mechanistic theories must be read in connection with his clinical/phenomenological psychology, Husserl's doctrine of transcendental consciousness together with his concrete analyses of the world and the body. Freud sticked to his mechanistic metaphors throughout his life, not just because mechanic materialism was his scientific point of departure, but also because he found the models of the psychical apparatus useful to picture the subject-matter of psycho-analysis, the unconscious as it is discovered by the analytic method. Correspondingly, Husserl found in transcendental idealism a metaphysical horizon apparently suited for his main theoretical project, to un-cover by phenomenological reflexion man in his free and conscious being. In this way Freud's materialism and Husserl's idealism might find their limited justification, not in the absolutistic sense set forth in the first section, but in relation to their weighting different aspects of the subject/object dialectic of man. This point of view I tried to explicate in the third section of this paper. In the subject/object dialectic Freud seems to underline man's existence as object, his being ruled by the mechanic, the irrational, the infantile, the unconscious. In contrast, Husserl underlines man's existence as subject, his free and conscious openness towards the world and the future. This difference I characterized with the notions of Ricoeur as respectively an "archeology" and a "teleology" of the subject. And yet the difference between Freud and Husserl is that of a weighting different sides of the subject/object dialectic, not of an exclusive thematisation of man as either subject or object. Freudian archaeology is supplemented by an implicit teleology, Husserlian teleology by an implicit archeology. On the background of such interpretation the relationship between psycho-analysis and phenomenology should be seen neither as the polarity of the first thematisation, nor as the synthesis of the second. Psycho-analysis and phenomenology both contradict and imply each other in a relationship that should be termed dialectical. With this third interpretation the paper ended. At last I noted that the problems raised by the controversy on the subject/object dialectic of man should not easily be solved. Instead, the question "what is man" should have to be answered continuously in a concrete historical reflextion or dialogue. Yet I think it safe to conclude, that any psychological consideration has to take into consideration, both man's archeological and his teleological features, thus not allowing the one perspective completely to rule out the other. (shrink)

In this review essay, the author commends Matthew Ratcliffe for his masterful and highly valuable account of the emotional phenomenology of existential change—of shifts in our experience of belonging to a shared world of possibilities—but criticizes him for his commitments to two frameworks that are actually extraneous and inimical to his project and that perpetuate remnants of Cartesian isolated-mind thinking—Husserlian ‘‘pure phenomenology’’ and traditional diagnostic psychiatry. The author contends that Ratcliffe’s devotion to a decontextualizing psychiatric language in particular conceals the (...) contexts of severe emotional trauma in which the existential feelings that he so beautifully elucidates take form. (shrink)

The present paper contributes to the analysis and understanding of post-traumatic stress disorder from the perspective of Husserlian phenomenology. The particular approach taken integrates the experience of a ptsd trigger into Husserl’s descriptive framework of noematic constitution. By analyzing the constituent makeup of a particular object that acts as a trigger for ptsd symptoms, a descriptive account of how an ordinary noematic correlate becomes a pathological traumatic correlate is provided. This is done in three steps. First, the traumatic correlate is (...) shown to emerge by way of a judgment. Then, the role of the Ego will be examined to identify the point where the intentional relation between sufferer and traumatic correlate becomes pathological. Third, a phenomenological description of belief characteristics indicates the mechanism by which this pathology is maintained. I conclude by showing the connection between a phenomenological account of ptsd triggers and the current therapeutic practice of prolonged exposure therapy. (shrink)

In the introduction to hisAllgemeine Psychopathologie, published in 1913, Karl Jaspers stated that psychology has little value for the psychopathologist because it focuses on all kinds of interesting matters, but not on normal psychic life. In this article we argue that today, in the year 2013, little has changed in this respect. During the past century, normal psychic life has rarely been a topic of research. Clinical psychology has focused primarily on studying three other topics: the mind-body problem, the methodological (...) debate and the psychotherapy debate. Due to this focus, our knowledge in the above-mentioned areas has increased significantly, but the issue raised by Karl Jaspers about normal psychic life has still not been addressed. In this article, we propose that normal psychic life should indeed become the new focus of clinical psychology. We illustrate the importance of this new focus with three examples from clinical psychology: the Global Assessment of Functioning scale, empathy and the emergence of positive psychology during the past decade. We then explore the efficacy of phenomenology for studying this normal psychic life, thereby discovering a useful epistemological basis in Husserl’s systematic phenomenology. Various phenomenological research methods are evaluated in the light of this systematic phenomenology. (shrink)

In the paragraphs immediately following the introduction of the method of phenomenological epoché (§§34-46) in Ideas, rather than applying this new method, Husserl provides a series of psychological descriptions on the basis of psychological reflection. This is surprising for at least two reasons. First, since Husserl has already distinguished phenomenology from psychology (both empirical and eidetic), it is not clear why he would engage in psychological reflection and description at this point in the book. Further, the psychological descriptions that Husserl (...) provides in these paragraphs are of consciousness — specifically, of our consciousness of something. But, as Husserl indicates at several points in the first book of Ideas, and as he more fully develops in the 1912 pencil manuscript of the second book of Ideas, the object of psychology is, strictly speaking, not consciousness but the soul (Seele) considered as reality (Realität). In this chapter, I first develop how these two interpretative difficulties can be overcome if we consider the overall aim of the second chapter — namely, to establish that consciousness has its own kind of being and hence essence. Then, I elucidate how exactly Husserl establishes this in this chapter and show how it entails a radical rethinking of the distinction between and relation of consciousness and world. (shrink)

This book takes Edmund Husserl's phenomenology and applies it to help psychotherapy practitioners formulate complex psychological problems. The reader will learn about Husserl's system of understanding and its concepts that point to first-person lived experience, and about the work of Husserl scholars who have developed a way to be precise about the experiences that clients have. Through exploring the connection between academic philosophy of consciousness and mental health, themes of biopsychosocial treatment planning, psychopathology of personality and psychological disorders, and the (...) treatment of complex psychological problems become clear. The author shows that Husserlian phenomenology can be used in the design of interventions for clients in a process called formulation. Once the intentionality of consciousness is understood, by asking simple questions, it becomes possible to define problematic experiences. This is a means of creating informed consent for treatment and it makes it clear to clients what is happening for them, so helping them understand themselves and how they see the world. We also see how Husserl's phenomenology is a vehicle for psychotherapists to present their knowledge about the research literature of what has been found to be effective care. This volume applies the concepts and practices of phenomenology in a concrete way, relating them to the practice of therapy and showing the value of a qualitative approach to understanding mental processes and the nature of human beings as motivated by values, meanings and other conscious experiences. This is a readable text in simple language that condenses key aspects of Husserl's thinking in relation to the theory and practice of psychotherapy, and it is suitable for philosophers and practitioners of psychology, psychiatry, and the psychotherapies, including psychoanalysis. (shrink)

Na prvi pogled se psihoanaliza in fenomenologija precej razlikujeta, kolikor zadnja nima nikakršnega koncepta nezavednega, četudi je v svojem opisovanju zavesti analogno strukturirana. Pri tem področje transcendentalne zavesti v fenomenološkem opisovanju korelira s področjem nezavednega, že zato, ker sta obe področji predmet »radikalnega« gibanja razsvetljenstva. Področje uporabe se sicer razlikuje, faktično pa, če se ozremo nazaj, sta služili obe vsakič drugemu cilju: s strukturalizmom vstopa psihoanaliza v neko novo paradigmo konstrukcije racionalnosti, fenomenološka metoda pa je v eksistencialni analizi postala individualni (...) instrument analize.At a first glance, psychoanalysis and phenomenology seem to differ largely, insofar as the latter possesses no concept of the unconscious, although it is analogously structured in its description of the unconscious. The sphere transcendental consciousness in phenomenological description correlates to the sphere of the unconscious primarily because both spheres are those of a “radical” movement of the Enlightenment. The fields of application do indeed differ ; factically, however, and retrospectively, they serve two different purposes: with structuralism, psychoanalysis enters a new paradigm of the construction of reality, whereas the phenomenological method with its existential analysis became an individual instrument of analysis. (shrink)

“La filosofia è per me, nella sua idea, una scienza universale e ‘rigorosa’ nel senso più radicale. Come tale essa è una scienza che posa su una fondazione ultima o, che è lo stesso, su un’ultima responsabilità e garanzia di se stessa, una scienza, dunque in cui nessuna ovvietà predicativa o ante-predicativa può fungere da inindagato terreno conoscitivo. Si tratta, insisto, di realizzare nello stile dell’instaurazione di una serie di validità relative e temporanee, attraverso un infinito processo storico un’Idea – (...) ma di realizzarla effettivamente” .Il precedente paragrafo sopra riportato illustra una serie di temi correlati che saranno familiari agli studiosi di Husserl. Egli si è dedicato alla scienza fondazionalista e pone una forte enfasi sulla responsabilità del ricercatore: sostiene che la conoscenza prodotta dalla pratica scientifica è prospettica e contestuale, un’intuizione legata alla sua visione di scienza come compito aperto, infinito. Se un metodo di ricerca psicologica deve essere genuinamente definito fenomenologico e husserliano, allora ognuno di questi temi, che rappresentano l’impegno da parte del ricercatore, devono essere presenti, in maniera implicita o esplicita.“For me, philosophy, as an idea, means universal, and in a radical sense, ‘rigorous’ science. As such, it is science built in on ultimate foundation, or, what comes down to the same thing, a science based on ultimate self-responsibility, in which, hence, nothing held to be obvious, either predicatively or pre-predicatively, can pass, unquestioned, as a basis for knowledge. It is, I emphasize, an idea, which, as the further meditative interpretation will show, is to be realized only by way of relative and temporary validities and in an infinite historical process—but in this way it is, in fact, realizable.” The preceding passage illustrates a number of interrelated themes which will be familiar to students of Husserl. He is dedicated to foundational science and places strong emphasis on the researcher’s self-responsibility. He asserts that the knowledge yielded by scientific praxis is perspectival and contextual, an insight linked to his vision of science as an open-ended, infinite task. If a psychological research method is to be genuinely termed phenomenological and Husserlian, then each of these themes, which also represent commitments on the part of the practitioner, must be present, implicitly or explicitly. (shrink)

L’autore presenta lo sviluppo del proprio metodo a partire dal background psicologico sperimentale da cui proviene e dal quale ha preso le distanze, a partire dal desiderio di studiare l’essere umano con un approccio globale, un metodo scientifico non frammentario. L’incontro con la filosofia di Edmund Husserl ha connotato questo suo percorso, in essa egli ha scoperto un approccio che rendesse possibile la ricerca sui fenomeni umani proprio con i criteri che andava inseguendo. Il metodo di ricerca che ha quindi (...) elaborato si basa sul lavoro di Husserl e di Merleau-Ponty. L’articolo descrive brevemente questo metodo.The author explains that his background was in experimental psychology but that he wanted to study the whole person and not fragmented psychological processes. He also desired a non-reductionistic method for studying humans. Fortunately he came across the work of Edmund Husserl and discovered in the latter’s thought a way of researching humans that met the criteria he was seeking. Eventually he developed a phenomenological method for researching humans in a psychological way based upon the work of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty. This article briefly describes the method. (shrink)

This study describes the fundamental nature of the client-therapist relationship. Current research has found this relationship to be more predictive of psychotherapeutic progress than any specific technique or general theoretical approach. Relationship researchers, however, have yet to develop a compelling description or definition of the therapy relationship. They have focused instead on establishing and perfecting psychometric instruments. This study demonstrates that the field's neglect of definitional efforts is the probable result of methodological procedures that derive, broadly speaking, from the empiricism (...) of David Hume. These procedures assume ontological and epistemological positions that lead to overlooking foundational descriptive analysis. The study explicates an alternative methodology-the transcendental phenomenology of Edmund Husserl---and demonstrates how this method, unlike Hume's empiricism, provides an objective procedure for describing the essential nature of the therapy relationship. Using this methodology, the study articulates, analyzes, and describes the elemental aspects of the therapy relationship. The study delineates the "bonding" or "conjunctive" ontology that underlies personal relations . It then explores complex subjective states that are inherent in all personal relations. Finally, it offers a look at the ramifications of the study's metaphysical and descriptive findings upon the counseling process, relationship research, counselor training, and philosophical and therapeutic theory. (shrink)