Ludwig Binswanger

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Ludwig Binswanger
Born April 13, 1881
Kreuzlingen, Switzerland
Died February 5, 1966 (84 years old)
Kreuzlingen, Switzerland
Nationality Swiss
Fields Psychiatry
Known for Daseinsanalysis
Influences Martin Heidegger
Edmund Husserl
Martin Buber
Influenced Eugène Minkowski
Laurence A. Rickels
Medard Boss
Franco Basaglia

Ludwig Binswanger (April 13, 1881 – February 5, 1966) was a Swiss psychiatrist and pioneer in the field of existential psychology. His grandfather (also named Ludwig Binswanger) was founder of the "Bellevue Sanatorium" in Kreuzlingen, and his uncle Otto Binswanger was a professor of psychiatry at the University of Jena.

He is considered the most distinguished of the phenomenological psychologists, and the most influential in making its concepts known in Europe and the States.[1]

Contents

Life and career [edit]

In 1907 Binswanger received his medical degree from the University of Zurich. As a young man he worked and studied with some of the greatest psychiatrists of the era, such as Carl Jung, Eugen Bleuler and Sigmund Freud. He visited Freud (who had cited his uncle Otto's work on Neurasthenia)[2] in 1907 alongside Jung, noting approvingly his host's "distaste for all formality and etiquette, his personal charm, his simplicity, casual openness and goodness".[3] The two men became lifelong friends, Freud finding Binswanger's 1912 illness "particularly painful", and Binswanger offering Freud a refuge in Switzerland in 1938.[4]

Binswanger became a member of the early 'Freud Group' Jung led in Switzerland;[5] but nevertheless wrestled throughout his life over the place of psychoanalysis in his thinking[6] - his 1921 article on 'Psychoanalysis and clinical Psychiatry'[7] being only one landmark of that lifelong struggle.[8]

Binswanger was further influenced by existential philosophy, particularly after WWI,[9] through the works of Martin Heidegger, Edmund Husserl, and Martin Buber, eventually evolving his own distinctive brand of existential-phenomenological psychology.

From 1911 to 1956, Binswanger was medical director of the santatorium in Kreuzlingen.

Thinking and influence [edit]

Binswanger is considered the first physician to combine psychotherapy with existential/phenomenological ideas, a concept he expounds in his 1942 book; Grundformen und Erkenntnis menschlichen Daseins (Basic Forms and the Realization of Human "Being-in-the-World"). In this work he explains existential analysis as an empirical science that involves an anthropological approach to the individual essential character of being human.[10]

Binswanger saw Husserl's concept of lifeworld as a key to understanding the subjective experiences of his patients, considering that "in the mental diseases we face modifications of the fundamental structure and of the structural links of being-in-the-world".[11] For Binswanger, mental illness involved the remaking of a world - including alterations in the lived experience of time, space, bodysense and social relationships.[12] Where for example the psychoanalyst might only see "an overly strong 'pre-oedipal' tie to the mother", Binswanger would point out that "such overly strong filial tie is only possible on the premise of a world-design exclusively based on connectedness, cohesiveness, continuity".[13]

Binswanger's Dream and Existence - which was translated from German into French by Michel Foucault who added a substantial essay-introduction - highlighted in similar fashion the necessity of "steeping oneself in the manifest content of the dream - which, since Freud's epoch-making postulate concerning the reconstruction of latent thoughts, has in modern times receded all to[o] far into the background".[14] Eugène Minkowski had earlier introduced Binswanger's ideas into France, influencing thereby among others the early work of Jacques Lacan.[15]

In his study of existentialism, his most famous subject was Ellen West, a deeply troubled patient whose case-study was translated into English for the 1958 volume Existence.[16] Binswanger ascribed "schizophrenia" to her, and her case is included in his book "Schizophrenie". But few contemporary psychiatrists would accept this diagnosis. "Anorexia nervosa" is also misplaced. She felt an extreme urge for weight loss.

Through his adoption from Buber of the importance of the concept of dialogue, Binswanger can also be seen as an ancestor to intersubjective approaches to therapy.[17] Binswanger emphasised the importance of mutual recognition, as opposed to the counterdependency of destructive narcissism, as described by Herbert Rosenfeld for example.[18]

Criticism [edit]

R. D. Laing criticised Binswanger's phenomenology of space for insufficiently realising the extent to which one's sense of space is structured by others.[19]

Fritz Perls criticised his existential therapy for leaning too heavily upon psychoanalysis.[20]

Works [edit]

  • 1907: Über das Verhalten des psychogalvanischen Phänomens beim Assoziationsexperiment. Diagnostische Assoziationsstudien.
  • 1910: Über Entstehung und Verhütung geistiger Störungen.
  • 1922: Einführung in die Probleme der allgemeinen Psychologie (Introduction to the Problems of General Psychology), Berlin
  • 1928: Wandlungen in der Auffassung und Deutung des Traumes (Transformations in the View and Interpretation of the Dream), Berlin
  • 1930: Traum und Existenz (Dream and Existence)
  • 1932: Zur Geschichte der Heilanstalt Bellevue. Kreuzlingen 1857–1932
  • 1933: Über Ideenflucht (On "Idea Escape"), Zurich
  • 1936: Freuds Auffassung des Menschen im Lichte der Anthropologie. Erweiterter Festvortrag gehalten zur Feier des 80. Geburtstags von Sigmund Freud im Akad. Verein für medizin. Psychologie. Vienna
  • 1942: Grundformen und Erkenntnis menschlichen Daseins (Basic Forms and Realization of Human Existence), Zurich (3rd édition, Munich/Basle, 1962)
  • 1946: Über Sprache und Denken (On Language and Thinking), Basle
  • Ausgewählte Aufsätze und Vorträge, Bd. 1: Zur phänomenologischen Anthropologie. Bern
  • 1949: Henrik Ibsen und das Problem der Selbstrealisation in der Kunst (Henrik Ibsen and the Problem of Self Realization in Art), Heidelberg
  • 1949: Die Bedeutung der Daseinsanalytik Martin Heideggers für das Selbstverständnis der Psychiatrie.
  • 1954: Über Martin Heidegger und die Psychiatrie. Festschrift zur Feier des 350jährigen Bestehens des Heinrich-Suso-Gymnasium zu Konstanz
  • 1955: Ausgewählte Vorträge und Aufsätze, Bd. II: Zur Problematik der psychiatrischen Forschung und zum Problem der Psychiatrie. Bern
  • 1956: Erinnerungen an Sigmund Freud (Memories of Sigmund Freud), Berne
  • 1956: Drei Formen missglückten Daseins: Verstiegenheit, Verschrobenheit, Manieriertheit (Three Forms of Failed Existence), Tübingen
  • 1957: Schizophrenie (Schizophrenia), Pfullingen
  • 1957: Der Mensch in der Psychiatrie (Humans in Psychiatry), Pfullingen
  • 1960: Melancholie und Manie: Phänomenologische Studien (Melancholy and Mania. Phenomenological Studies), Pfullingen
  • 1961: Geleitwort zu Hans Häfners „Psychopathien“. Monographien aus dem Gesamtgebiet der Neurologie und Psychiatrie. Berlin
  • 1962: Der Musische Mensch. Vorwort zu „Musische Erziehung“. Amriswil
  • 1965: Wahn. Beiträge zu seiner phänomenologischen und daseinsanalytischen Erforschung. Pfullingen
  • 1992: Traum und Existenz. Einleitung von Michel Foucault. Verlag Gachnang & Springer, Bern / Berlin. ISBN 978-3-906127-31-6
  • 2007: Aby Warburg: La guarigione infinita. Storia clinica di Aby Warburg. A cura di Davide Stimilli. Vicenza 2005 (auf Deutsch: Die unendliche Heilung. Aby Warburgs Krankengeschichte, diaphanes, Zürich/Berlin).

German edition of selected works [edit]

See also [edit]

References [edit]

  1. ^ Todd May, 'Foucault's Relation to Phenomenology', in Gary Gutting ed., The Cambridge Companion to Foucault (2007) p. 287
  2. ^ Sigmund Freud, Civilization, Society and Religion (PFL 12) p. 36
  3. ^ Quoted in Peter Gay, Freud: A Life for Our Time (1988) p. 203
  4. ^ Gay, p. 229 and p. 789
  5. ^ Ernest Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud (1961) p. 331
  6. ^ Gay, p. 242-3
  7. ^ Otto Fenichel, The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neorosis (London 1946) p. 416 and p. 598
  8. ^ Herbert Spiegelberg, Phenomenology in Psychology and Psychiatry (1972) p. 197
  9. ^ Spiegelberg, p. 198-202
  10. ^ Answers.com Ludwig Binswanger
  11. ^ Quoted by May, p. 288
  12. ^ May, p. 295
  13. ^ Quoted by May, p. 289
  14. ^ Quoted in May, p. 289
  15. ^ Elisabeth Roudinesco, Jacques Lacan (2005) p. 45
  16. ^ Eugene Taylor, The Mysteries of Personality (2009) p. 81
  17. ^ Donna M. Orange, Thinking for Clinicians (nd) p. 3
  18. ^ Brian Koehler, 'Ludwig Binswanger: Contributions to an Intersubjective Approach to Psychosis'
  19. ^ R. D. Laing, Self and Others(1969) p. 135
  20. ^ Fritz Perls, Gestalt Therapy Verbatim (1972) p. 16-17

Further reading [edit]

  • Bühler, Karl-Ernst (2004), "Existential analysis and psychoanalysis: specific differences and personal relationship between Ludwig Binswanger and Sigmund Freud.", American journal of psychotherapy 58 (1): 34–50, PMID 15106398 
  • Reppen, Joseph (2003), "Ludwig Binswanger and Sigmund Freud: portrait of a friendship.", Psychoanalytic review (2003 Jun) 90 (3): 281–91, doi:10.1521/prev.90.3.281.23619, PMID 14621641 
  • Wittern, Ursula; Hirschmüller, Albrecht (2002), "[Drug therapy of psychiatric patients in the middle of the 19th century: the drug armamentarium of Ludwig Binswanger sen. in his "Asyl Bellevue"]", Gesnerus 59 (3–4): 198–223, PMID 12587404 
  • Hoffman, Klaus (2002), "[Historical essays on Ludwig Binswanger and psychoanalysis]", Luzifer-Amor : Zeitschrift zur Geschichte der Psychoanalyse 15 (29): 1–189, PMID 12164205 
  • Ghaemi, S N (2001), "Rediscovering existential psychotherapy: the contribution of Ludwig Binswanger", American journal of psychotherapy 55 (1): 51–64, PMID 11291191 
  • "[Sigmund Freud / Ludwig Binswanger. Correspondence]", Psyche (1992 Mar) 46 (3), 1992: 221–44, PMID 1581699 
  • Pivnicki, D (1979), "Paradoxes of psychotherapy. In honor and memory of Ludwig Binswanger", Confinia psychiatrica. Borderland of psychiatry. Grenzgebiete der Psychiatrie. Les Confins de la psychiatrie 22 (4): 197–203, PMID 394913 
  • Kuhn, R (1972), "[Current importance of the work of Ludwig Binswanger]", Zeitschrift für klinische Psychologie und Psychotherapie 20 (4): 311–21, PMID 4576200 
  • Kuhn, R (1968), "[Ludwig Binswanger, April 13, 1881 - February 5, 1966]", Bulletin der Schweizerischen Akademie der Medizinischen Wissenschaften (1968 Nov): Suppl 24:99+, PMID 4883993 
  • Vanderpool, J P (1968), "The existential approach to psychiatry (Ludwig Binswanger), (Victor Frankl)", Tex. Rep. Biol. Med. 26 (2): 163–71, PMID 4877375 
  • Delgado, H (1967), "[Necrology. Ludwig Binswanger]", Revista de neuro-psiquiatría (1967 Jun) 30 (2): 216–7, PMID 4881552 
  • Colpe, C (1967), "[A physician in a dialogue. Reminiscences of Ludwig Binswanger, died on 5 February 1966]", Der Landarzt (1967 Feb 28) 43 (6): 277–83, PMID 4873391 
  • Kuhn, R (1967), "[Ludwig Binswanger (1881-1966)]", Schweizer Archiv für Neurologie, Neurochirurgie und Psychiatrie = Archives suisses de neurologie, neurochirurgie et de psychiatrie 99 (1): 113–7, PMID 5339997 
  • Straus, E (1966), "[To the memory of Ludwig Binswanger 1881-1966]", Der Nervenarzt (1966 Dec) 37 (12): 529–31, PMID 4861043 
  • Cargnello, D, "[Ludwig Binswanger) 1881-1966)]", Archivio di psicologia, neurologia e psichiatria 27 (2): 106–10, PMID 5329204 
  • Holt, H (1966), "Ludwig binswanger (1881-1966): a tribute", Journal of existentialism 6 (25): 93–6, PMID 5342183 
  • WYRSCH, J (1961), "[To Ludwig BINSWANGER on his 80th birthday.]", Psychiatria et neurologia (1961 Apr) 141: 229–33, PMID 13787004 
  • STRAUS, E W (1951), "[On the 70th birthday of Ludwig Binswanger.]", Der Nervenarzt (1951 Jul 20) 22 (7): 269–70, PMID 14863527 
  • "[To Ludwig Binswanger on his 70th birthday.]", Schweizer Archiv für Neurologie und Psychiatrie. Archives suisses de neurologie et de psychiatrie. Archivio svizzero di neurologia e psichiatria 67 (1), 1951: 1–4, PMID 14865927 

External links [edit]

Authority control
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ludwig_Binswanger&oldid=553694121"