Abstract

The article gives a detailed view of the existential psychoanalysis of Swiss philosopher and psychologist Medard Boss. Based on the fundamental ontology of M. Heidegger, M. Boss criticizes the psychodynamic theories of the human psyche and turns to the analysis of the problem of human nature. A person, from the Boss's point of view, can only be understood as a person in the world (being-in-the-world). Through human existence, being can manifest itself as such. This is the destination of man. The basic existential category of M. Boss is the concept of "openness". The openness of existence allows us to get to know other people and respond to their own call to us. Existence is characterized by the Boss as joint, complicit, endowed with "presence", which is an ensemble of possibilities. M. Boss defines human existence through the existentials of spatiality, temporality, corporeality, eventfulness in the shared world, mood, historicity, and mortality. The realization of existence, according to the Boss, is possible only in the free choice that a person is initially endowed with, but which he may lose in the process of socialization. Blocking openness and freedom leads a person to neuroticism and illness. The article also analyzes the essence of the psychotherapeutic approach of M. Boss, which is based on the desire to understand a person through "highlighting" and openness. The article shows the opposition of existential analysis of the classical psychoanalytic tradition.