Logical and conceptual problems of existential psychiatry

Abstract

The author has argued that existential psychology and psychiatry are not consistent with existential philosophy, from which they derive their basic concepts. Existential philosophy treats consciousness as an epistemic and ontological absolute while existential psychology and psychiatry acknowledge the existence of unconscious mental processes. It is not possible to base a viable concept of psychodynamic psychotherapy, the nature of transference, or the efficacy of interpretation upon the radical concept of freedom, which is basic to existential philosophy. If psychiatrists wish to experiment with nonpsychoanalytic dynamic psychologies, then it is the author's opinion that the advancement of knowledge would be better served either by using existentialist concepts and principles consistently or by explicitly altering them in clearly defined ways for stated reasons, or by formulating psychodynamic hypotheses that do not lay claim to any foundation in existential philosophy.