Ludwig Binswanger

Ludwig Binswanger

Ludwig Binswanger
Born April 13, 1881
Kreuzlingen
Died Feb 5, 1966 ( 84 years old)
Kreuzlingen
Nationality Swiss
Fields psychiatry

Ludwig Binswanger (April 13, 1881, Kreuzlingen – 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.

In 1907 Binswanger received his medical degree from the University of Zurich and as a young man worked and studied with some of the greatest psychologists of the era, such as Carl Jung, Eugen Bleuler and Sigmund Freud. Although he had fundamental differences with Freud regarding psychiatric theory, Binswanger and Freud remained friends until the latter's death in 1939.

From 1911 to 1956, Binswanger was medical director of the santatorium in Kreuzlingen. He was influenced by existential philosophy and the works of Martin Heidegger, Edmund Husserl, and Martin Buber. Binswanger is considered the first physician to combine psychotherapy with existential 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.[1] In his study of existentialism, his most famous subject was Ellen West, a deeply troubled patient. 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. But since she was extraordinarily fat this was hardly a pathological aim.

Binswanger's Dream and Existence was translated from German into French by Michel Foucault, who added a substantial essay-introduction.

Selected written works

References

  1. ^ Answers.com Ludwig Binswanger

External links