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The following review was the last contribution of Jacob Blauner to this publication before his untimely death in 1959. A Member-in-Training of the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis, Inc., Mr. Blauner was beloved of colleagues for his deep humanity and ardent spirit of inquiry.—Eds.
Application of existentialist thoughts to psychology and psychiatry has been called various names, from nihilistic to nympholeptic. While the latter is irrelevant, the former deserves discussion. Anxiety, dread, death, indeed all the negative aspects of the human condition are the subject matter of the siren song of the German Lorelei, Heidegger—so runs the argument of those opposing the new trend. But closer examination of existential analysis shows that psychoanalysts are not so easily enticed. Ludwig Binswanger, the most prominent of the existentialists, developed his ideas against Heidegger, as I had occasion to point out earlier in this Review (Vol. 44, No. 1, 1957). Binswanger himself speaks rather of his “positive criticism of Heidegger.” He sets against the overconcern with the self, its immediacy, and its death, the relation of the I to the Thou, pointing toward the world of love in which the shortcomings of the world of care are surpassed.
Existential analysis formulates the questions of human problems in existential terms, thus initiating a new direction in the psychological sciences. The answers, however, are not necessarily those given by the prominent spokesmen of existentialist philosophy. The dread and despair in human life, which existentialism stresses, is the point of departure. The aim is to overcome despair and to live in the human condition. Enthusiasm is a fitting mood for such a project. In physical research utter detachment might be helpful; in human affairs the truthful approach is human and not by means of computers and automation. Man is not an object among other objects of the world; he is unique, and all investigation must start with this un