Existential Dialogues 2026: "A Chorus of Voices"
Topic: "Daseinanalysis" between Prof. Ernesto Spinelli and Dr. Miles Groth
“Therapeutic daseinanalysis (Daseinsanalyse) is a modality, based on orthodox psychoanalysis, developed by the Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Medard Boss (1903-1990). The name was coined by Jacob Wyrsh and first used by the hospital psychiatrist Ludwig Binswanger in his theoretical work on medical anthropology and psychopathology. The first daseinanalytic institute was founded in 1970. An annual publishing papers in the area has been in publication since 1984. Currently, there are active institutes in Austria, Brazil, Greece, Hungary and the United States, with study groups in the United Kingdom and Poland. Daseinanalysis has taken over from psychoanalysis the use of the couch, invocation of the fundamental rule, and an emphasis on dreaming life. Boss showed that Freud’s metapsychology was superfluous in accounting for the efficacy of therapeutic practice but affirmed that Freud’s praxis was foundational for all psychotherapies, even those that have given up use of the couch and meet analysands vis-à-vis. Daseinanalysis was developed over several decades of Medard Boss’s close cooperation with Martin Heidegger and can be said to be the therapeutic modality most securely based in Heidegger’s analytic of Dasein.” Dr. Miles Groth.
Miles Groth, PhD (philosophy) trained both as an orthodox psychoanalyst and as a daseinanalyst. He taught psychology and philosophy for twenty-five years at Wagner College. He has been in practice since 1972, first in Pittsburgh and since 1981 in New York City. He is the author of eight books and the co-author of four books, the editor of three books, fourteen chapters in edited books, forty-five articles and more about forty book reviews in scholarly journals. He co-founded the American Daseinsanalytic Institute in 2021 with Tamás Fazekas. He has been an invited lecturer in Australia, Canada, and throughout Europe (including Germany, Hungary, and Italy). He has privately published two volumes of translations of texts of Martin Heidegger. His work has been translated into French, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish.
Recommended readings for “Daseinanalysis”:
Miles Groth, Why in the world not? An Introduction to Daseinanalysis, London: Free Associations Books, 2024
Gion Condrau, Martin Heidegger’s Impact on Psychotherapy [1998] (2nd rev. ed., Miles Groth), London: Free Association Books, 2021
Miles Groth and Tamás Fazekas, The Renaissance of Daseinsanalysis: What Does Existential Really Mean?, London: The Society for Existential Analysis, 2021
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