InterCultural Philosophy

Introduction

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Einleitung

„Nicht ganz da“ oder „mit allem verschmolzen“

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In diesem Beitrag will ich die Kernerfahrungen von Manien und Depressionen als verändertes Präsenzerleben deuten. Unter Präsenzerleben verstehe ich dabei das präreflexive und ungerichtete Hintergrundgefühl, dass eine Welt existiert und man ein Teil derselben ist. Die für Manien kennzeichnende Erfahrung übermäßiger Verbundenheit und das depressionstypische Gefühl, vom Rest der Welt abgetrennt zu sein, sind demnach Ausdruck einer Intensivierung bzw. Schwächung des Erlebens von leiblich-räumlicher Anwesenheit und zeitlicher Gegenwart. Im Zuge der Untersuchung will ich nicht nur eine phänomenologische Einsicht in die Erfahrungen affektiver Störungen geben, sondern auch die Störungen der transzendentalen Strukturen ausmachen, durch die sich diese Erfahrungen erklären lassen.

Trapped in a Mirror Maze

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Using interviews with patients staying at the Soteria Unit of the Center for Psychiatry (zfp) Reichenau, the article provides a phenomenological analysis of hallucinations. The interviews indicate that hallucinations are experienced quite differently than actual perceptions. Their modalities of experience are mostly fluctuating and highly ambiguous. Often, they are not visible or audible at all, but manifest in the mere bodily feeling of something or someone’s presence. According to Merleau-Ponty, every hallucination is therefore a "hallucination of the body." Drawing on Thomas Fuchs’ analysis of schizophrenia, the paper shows that in hallucinations the body responds to alienated states of intentional consciousness that are no longer assigned to one's own mental life.

Suffering as Precarious Presence – a Husserlian Proposal

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Recent research on chronic pain has recognized the need to define the concept of pain-related suffering (Noe-Steinmüller et al., in review.). Svenaeus (2014) has proposed a definition of suffering as an alienating mood, which avoids important problems of previous definitions (e.g., Wade, 1996). However, it rests on a Sartrean phenomenology of pain experience, which fails to account for some fundamental aspects of pain. A Husserlian alternative to Sartre’s phenomenology of pain is introduced and it is argued that suffering is better defined as a precarious relationship to self and world, where the presence of neither can be taken for granted.

Exploring Therapeutic Empathic Presence through the “Now Moment”

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Through an interdisciplinary focus on “now moments” in therapy, I argue that a multidimensional, developmentally-grounded framework for what I call “therapeutic empathic presence” can emerge that shows the crucial role that direct access empathy can play in the therapeutic encounter. I elaborate my framework through integrating perspectives from theories of mind, phenomenology (including neurophenomenology) and psychoanalysis and discuss intercorporeal and inter-affective elements as well as a psychoanalytic mutual recognitive concept. In all, I show that such presence involves an ethically-guided, mature empathy that involves authenticity and cultivated self- and self-other awareness. Key concepts are illustrated in a clinical vignette.

Präsenz und Existenz

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Es gibt eine zeitliche Form von Präsenzerfahrungen, intensive Augenblickserfahrungen, die im Bewusstsein der eigenen Sterblichkeit entstehen. Wenn wir die Endlichkeit unserer Existenz erfahren, verdichten sich unsere Wahrnehmungen zu Präsenzerlebnissen. Dieser Zusammenhang soll eingangs in der Existenzphilosophie von Karl Jaspers begrifflich skizziert und anhand der literaturwissenschaftlichen Analyse zweier fiktionaler Texte erläutert werden. Für die begriffliche Schärfung der Analyseergebnisse wird der jaspersche Begriff der Grenzsituation des Todes bemüht. Präsenz stellt sich als ein Umschlag drohender Todesnähe, wie sie in einer Grenzsituation herrscht, in das unmittelbare Erlebnis der Wirklichkeit dar. Sie zeigt sich als ein Phänomen, das im Kontrast und auf der Grenze von Leben und Tod aufscheint.

Loneliness as an Experience of Emptiness

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Current works on loneliness as a phenomenon mostly explore its social causes and consequences. Scholars are often interested in such things as examining of the kinds of social setting that engender one’s feeling or experience of loneliness, the health and moral hazards that come with such an experience, and the ways in which loneliness could be remedied. The angle at which these works approach loneliness indicates a particular way of framing this experience – that loneliness is an undesirable experience of an individual who is often in a deprived or isolated state in relation to others. Or to put it more explicitly, an individual’s loneliness experience is considered as being caused by a certain undesirable interactive type of social relationship that neglects the significance of the individual as a person. There are two aspects – metaphysical and phenomenological - to be highlighted under this framework. First, the metaphysical aspect points to the explanatory nature of the framework for one’s experience of loneliness. Specifically, scholars attempt to understand loneliness by seeking what (mainly) causes it. Given that what was found as the main cause was the deprivation or the non-existence of social assistance or interpersonal goods, scholars often understand loneliness as such. Second, the phenomenological aspect of the existing framework is that, based on the explanatory aspect, the experience of loneliness is thus often understood or theorized as that of absence given the resultant actual or perceived deprivation or loss of those goods. In the paper, I will focus on the second aspect that loneliness is understood with the concept of absence, and I argue that this concept is phenomenologically inadequate. I propose to replace it with the concept of emptiness, and I argue that loneliness should be understood as the intentional experience of (the presence of) emptiness. The advantage in choosing this term, as I see it, is that it is experientially richer in that it captures the affective and bodily nature of our being in dealing with or making sense of things and the space in which they occupy.