by Piet Vanclooster | Vol 19 (4) 2001
This article reexamines Binswanger’s construction of the manic form of Being-in-the-world as formulated in his Über Ideenflucht (1933). On the one hand, we confront Binswanger’s phenomenological approach of the flight of ideas inspired by Heidegger’s thinking with the classic natural scientific approach of that time. We discuss the way in which both approaches differ radically from one another and we probe deeper into Binswanger’s criticism of Kraepelin, one of the most important representatives of the natural scientifically oriented psychiatry. On the other hand, we connect Binswanger’s analysis of the manic form of Being-in-the-world as a particular way in which the manic subject relates to language, other and time with some propositions from Lacan’s teaching on psychosis.
by Van Bunder David - Vandamme Charlotte | Full text, Vol 27 (1/2) 2009
This essay tracks the experiences of an excited psychotic woman who moves from a closed crisis unit to an open treatment unit. Initially the move has devastating consequences and she falls apart. After only a couple of days she is transferred back to the closed unit in a hypo-manic, completely excited, state. This is the beginning of a process involving both units. We decide to move her gradually: a couple of hours a day in the closed unit and a couple of hours a day in the open one. At first the only idea we have is to organise regular meetings between the teams. Very soon the idea develops to work more with her transference onto objects and places rather than with her transference onto members of the team. Work with a photo album quickly reduces her excitation. In a second stage we try to explain what went wrong with her first transfer and what worked with the second attempt. To this end we use the conceptual apparatus of Institutional Psychotherapy, the notion of contact (Szondi/Schotte), and Winnicott’s ideas with regard to the transitional object and the continuity of being.
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