SEVEN PAPERS ON EXISTENTIAL ANALYSIS ... - Wagner College

World War II, in 1951, Kuhn 47 had published his paper on "Existential Analysis in Therapeutic
Conversation" in the Swiss Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry.
By the late 1950s, existential analysis had been given recognition by Frieda Fromm-
Reichmann and Jacob Moreno in their Progress in Psychotherapy, 48 but around the time of the
appearance, in 1958, of Existence, a classic collection of essays edited by May, Henri
Ellenberger and Ernst Angel, 49 organized psychiatry had already become critical of existential
psychotherapy. In 1960, Benjamin Wolstein 50 and others wrote vigorously against the
movement. Still others in the mainstream of psychoanalysis and medical psychology, including
Henry Ey 51 and Gregory Zilboorg 52 , supported it for a time.
By the late 1960s, there was a fair amount of confusion about the differences between
existential psychotherapy, existential analysis and existential psychoanalysis, on the one hand,
and existential-phenomenological praxis, on the other. For a while, at least in print, existential
analysis was identified by some with Frankl's logotherapy. It was thought of by some as a
modification of psychoanalysis.
During the 1970s and 1980s, existential/humanistic psychotherapies were eclipsed by
cognitive-behavioral treatments and their influence was less visible, although they were still
discussed in textbooks and handbooks of psychotherapy. As already noted, during the second
half of the twentieth century, following its medicalization and its professionalization chiefly by
social work, the inherent possibilities of autonomous psychotherapy (to use Thomas Szasz's term)
were foreclosed, and more recently, as recounted above, the involvement of professional
psychotherapists in the contemporary managed health care industry in this country has further
precluded the establishment and maintenance of the covenant that must be formed between
the existential psychotherapist and her patient partner.
While the philosophical background of existential psychotherapy is clear to many of us
from our familiarity with its origins, many young therapists today are unaware of the seminal
voices of existential philosophy, especially Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Buber, Heidegger and Sartre.
Much of Binswanger is still available only in German. Medard Boss's seminars with Heidegger
have been available for some time, but their publication in English is still pending. Finally, there
are no good anthologies of the early papers on existential psychotherapy but many of those
papers still remain untranslated.
It is clear that a new generation of existential psychotherapists must become familiar with
the early philosophical and literary sources of existentialism and existential psychotherapy. It is
also clear to those of us who teach undergraduates that there is a real hunger for this tradition
among college students, and this is probably where the renaissance of interest in existential
psychotherapy in this country will begin. More and more students will then go on to graduate
school with questions that challenge the empiricism that dominates academic psychology.
47 "Daseinsanalyse im psychotherapeutischen Gespräch," in Schweizer Archiv für
Neurologie und Psychiatrie 67, 1951, pp. 52-60.
48 New York: Grune and Stratton, 1956.
49 New York: Basic Books, 1958.
50 "Existential Analysis in Search of a Therapy," in American Journal of Psychotherapy 15,
1961, pp. 382-394. "On the Psychological Absurdity of Existential Analysis," in Psychoanalysis and
the Psychoanalytic Review 49(3), 1962, pp. 1171-124. Irrational Despair (Glencoe: Free Press,
1962).
51 "Valeur Therapeutique de l'Analyse Existentiele," in Acta Psychotherapeutica et
Psychosomatica 8, 1960, pp. 241-251.
52 "Individualism, Personalism, and Existentialism," in Acta Psychotherapeutica et Psychosomatica 8,
1960, pp. 261-266.