A Hermeneutics of Exploration: the Interpretive Turn from Binswanger to Gadamer
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Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology © 2010 American Psychological Association 2010, Vol. 30, No. 2, 79–93 1068-8471/10/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0021570 A Hermeneutics of Exploration: The Interpretive Turn From Binswanger to Gadamer Roger Frie Simon Fraser University The interpretive turn in psychology is strongly indebted to the hermeneutic philoso- phies of Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer. What is less known is the degree to which the interpretive turn is already initiated in the 1920s by the Swiss psychiatrist, Ludwig Binswanger (1881–1965). For Binswanger, the objective of psychology and psychopathology is to understand how the person exists and relates to others in the world—and this can only be achieved through a situated understanding of the person in his or her life-world. Binswanger is one of the first to recognize and work out the contributions of Husserl’s and Heidegger’s philosophies for psychology. Using an approach that combines elements from phenomenology, hermeneutics and dialogical philosophy, Binswanger views the person not as an object, but as fundamentally immersed in a world of human relating. Yet Binswanger is not a Heideggerian, and does not identify his work as existential. Instead, he develops a dialogical perspective on human experience that parallels important aspects of Gadamer’s hermeneutics. Drawing chiefly on untranslated texts, I maintain that Binswanger’s hermeneutics of exploration forms an important, if relatively unknown chapter of the interpretive turn in psychology. Keywords: interpretive turn, hermeneutics, phenomenology, dialogical philosophy, psychotherapy In every psychology that makes the person, as such, chotherapist, Ludwig Binswanger (1881– into an object—particularly those psychologies 1965), whose primary objective was to over- founded by natural scientists . we find a rift, a gap through which it is clear that what is being scientif- come what he referred to as the “fatal defect” ically studied is not the whole person, not human- ([1946] 1958, p. 193) of psychology: namely, being as a whole. Everywhere we find something the division between subject and object that that overflows and bursts the bounds of such a led to a reductionist and objectifying account psychology. of the person. For Binswanger, the task of Ludwig Binswanger ([1936a] 1947, p. 179). psychology was to understand how the person The interpretive turn in psychology is exists and relates to others in the world—and strongly indebted to the hermeneutic philoso- this could only be achieved through the her- phies of Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Ga- meneutic exploration of the person in his or damer. What is less known is the degree to her life-world. which the interpretive turn was already initiated Binswanger sought to forge a new discourse in the 1920s by a group of European psychia- of the person that was grounded in the human trists who are broadly identified in North Amer- sciences and could bridge the disparate terrains ica as “existential analysts.” Chief among them of psychiatry, philosophy, and psychoanalysis. is the Swiss psychiatrist, philosopher and psy- He was arguably the first to substantively apply ideas from phenomenology, hermeneutics and dialogical philosophy to psychiatric and psy- chotherapeutic endeavors. Turning to the works Roger Frie, Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser Univer- sity. of Wilhelm Dilthey, Edmund Husserl, Max This is an expanded version of a paper presented to Scheler, Martin Heidegger, and Martin Buber, Division 24 at the American Psychological Association among others, Binswanger refashioned the dis- Annual Convention in Toronto, Canada, in August, 2009. ciplines of phenomenology and interpretive in- Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University, 8888 Uni- quiry to understand the lived experience of the versity Drive, Burnaby, BC, Canada V5A 1S6. E-mail: roger person. Binswanger referred to his psychologi- [email protected] cal approach as “phenomenological anthropol- 79 80 FRIE ogy.”1 It was this cross-disciplinary undertaking psychotherapy that draws on the ideas of Martin that the young Michel Foucault lauded in his Heidegger. Binswanger was first introduced to book length introduction to Binswanger’s arti- English speaking audiences by Rollo May, cle Dream and Existence ([1930] 1994a). Ac- Ernst Angel and Henri Ellenberger in their path- cording to Foucault ([1954] 1993): “To reject breaking book: Existence: A new dimension in such an inquiry at first glance because it is psychiatry and psychology (1958). A few years neither philosophy nor psychology, because one later, Jacob Needleman translated and intro- cannot define it as either science or speculation, duced a selection of Binswanger’s essays and because it neither looks like positive knowledge case studies in Being-in-the-world: The selected nor provides the content of a priori cognition, is papers of Ludwig Binswanger (1962). to ignore the basic meaning of the project” It is noteworthy that the small selection of (p. 32). Binswanger’s essays and case studies that have This essay will explore the “basic meaning” been translated into English are chiefly those of Binswanger’s phenomenological anthropol- that deal with the application of Heidegger’s ogy and demonstrate its relevance for the inter- philosophy to psychology and psychotherapy. pretive turn in psychology. I will examine Binswanger’s oeuvre is much broader than his Binswanger’s ideas in light of their connection English translations, however, and his interest to the hermeneutic perspectives of Heidegger in Heidegger forms only one phase of his work, and Gadamer. I will begin by considering albeit an important one. As a result, Binswanger Dilthey’s work, which provides Binswanger continues to be identified in the English- with an initial model for understanding the per- speaking world as an “existential” psychologist, son without resorting to the dichotomization of a moniker he was careful to avoid. My objective outward explanation and inner understanding. here is to broaden the reception of Binswanger In turn, Binswanger’s critique of reductionism by focusing largely on his untranslated work in psychiatry and psychoanalysis draws on Hus- (translations are my own, and in some cases I serl’s phenomenology and Heidegger’s inter- have changed existing translations) and con- pretive account of being. Binswanger’s notion sider its importance for, and connection with, of “world-designs” (Weltentwuerfe) – the struc- the interpretive turn in psychology. I will only ture of a person’s lived experience—provides briefly examine Binswanger’s critique of Hei- the impetus for a phenomenological and herme- degger, which I have examined at length else- neutic account of psychopathology and psycho- where (Frie, 1997), and I will suggest that Hei- therapy. Using Hans-Georg Gadamer’s notions degger’s later refutations of Binswanger in his of “horizons of understanding” and “conversa- recently translated Zollikon Seminars ([1987] tion,” I will expand on Binswanger’s theories 2001) tell only part of the story (see Frie and elaborate their connection to the interpre- 1999b).2 Indeed, Binswanger’s turn to the phi- tive turn. Binswanger’s work anticipates Gada- losophy of dialogue provides an important mer’s hermeneutics on several counts. I will counterpoint to Heidegger’s inadequate treat- conclude by suggesting that Binswanger’s chief ment of the social dimension in Being and Time contribution is a hermeneutics of exploration ([1927] 1962). that is grounded in a dialogical view of the The question of why so little of Binswanger’s person. work is known today is perhaps best answered by considering the context of his ideas. Situating Binswanger in Contemporary Binswanger belonged to a continental European and Historical Contexts 1 Before examining Binswanger’s work, it is Binswanger was interested in anthropology in the word’s true etymological sense: the study of the situated important to situate him historically and philo- human being. sophically. If the name, “Ludwig Binswanger” 2 Indeed, it is only with the recent (2001) English- is recognized today, it is usually in connection language translation of Heidegger’s Zollikon Seminars (a with the emergence of humanistic and existen- series of transcribed seminars Heidegger gave to psychia- trists in Zollikon, Switzerland, during the 1950s and 1960s tial psychology during the 1960s. Binswanger is at Boss’s behest), that Binswanger’s critical stance vis a vis commonly known as a founder of “Dasein- Heidegger has generally become known to English speaking sanalysis,” or existential analysis, a form of readers. A HERMENEUTICS OF EXPLORATION 81 tradition of intellectual thought that freely com- As director from 1910 to 1956, Binswanger bined insights from philosophy and clinical dedicated much of his time to the integration of practice. Much of Binswanger’s work is philo- theoretical and clinical insights from philoso- sophical in scope, save for a relatively small phy, psychoanalysis and psychiatry, drawing number of case studies, and as such, remains above all on the work of Husserl, Heidegger, distant from the concerns of most contemporary and Buber. Binswanger’s broad theoretical in- psychologists. Academic psychologists today terests were reflected in his personal associa- chiefly define their work within a natural scien- tions with major thinkers of the time. Among tific paradigm. Similarly, training and practice the prominent figures who visited Binswanger for most