International Journal of Existential Volume 5, Issue 1 July 2014 Psychology & Psychotherapy Unearthing the Humanistic Predilection of Daseinsanalysis Jacob W. Glazier University of West Georgia Leslie W. O’Ryan Western Illinois University Matthew E. Lemberger University of New Mexico Abstract In recent years, there has been renewed interest among the mental health professions in the principles of humanism. This rekindled discourse can be supplemented by an examination of the existential-phenomenological psychotherapy approach known as daseinsanalysis, as primarily influenced by the works of Martin Heidegger and Medard Boss. Daseinsanalysis complements humanistic values while providing a sophisticated philosophical scheme to frame the human way of being. The authors provide a brief explication of humanistic philosophy and daseinsanalysis, particularly as each are consistent in informing psychotherapeutic practitioners. Unearthing the Humanistic Predilection of Daseinsanalysis Using poetry to illuminate the human experience, the philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889 – 1976 AD) offered the following lines: “The world’s darkening never reaches to the light of Being. We are too late for the gods and too early for Being. Being’s poem, just begun, is man” (2001a, p. 4). Man, for Heidegger (1927/1996), is best understood through the concept of Dasein, which means the self as extant in the world. This idea is a hallmark of the existential movement and, by extension, rests at the foundation of meaning-making by humanists. Heidegger was concerned with the manner in which the self as Dasein operates in the world - what are the givens of human existence? To translate Heidegger’s Dasein into operations for psychotherapeutic activities, Medard Boss (1903 – 1990 AD) appropriated Heidegger’s philosophy into a brand of existential-phenomenological psychotherapy known as daseinsanalysis. It may be helpful for practitioners to view the structure of daseinsanalysis as providing a gestalt switch, much in the same way as described by Kuhn (1962), whereby the therapist undergoes a holistic perceptual shift in his or her worldview. The daseinsanalytic view as put forth by this article can help facilitate such a paradigmatic change in the way a practitioner views the process of therapy. In order to make Heidegger’s (1927/1996) ideas applicable to therapy, Boss (1963) appropriated what were originally ontological structures into ontic givens. As a result, the authors caution against reducing the ideas of Heidegger’s philosophy into mere talking points between a therapist and client. In fact, Boss (1963) recognized the difficulty of making Heidegger’s ideas practical. Boss recommended that psychotherapists interested in this approach first understand how the different elements of daseinsanalysis work together to create a holistic picture of the way individuals are embedded in the world. Humans’ intrinsic absorption in the world is echoed by the philosophical system known as humanism which became formalized in the middle of the twentieth century. Both humanism and daseinsanalysis share many of the same postulates regarding the human condition. Humanism as Philosophical Ally to Daseinsanalysis While contemporary humanism emerged in the middle of the twentieth century (Hansen, 2010), it was largely overshadowed by the natural sciences in terms of positivism, objectivism, and medicalization, in part, because humanistic theory objected to a natural science vision of human nature. As Toulmin (1990) argued, the natural sciences advanced during the Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries when an engaged way of knowing shifted to detachment that emphasized abstraction and universality. Generally, the philosophical dualism of Descartes is credited with facilitating the wide acceptance of the natural sciences as the established arbiter of truth (Toulmin, 1990). www.existentialpsychology.org 148