Recent Considerations in Daseinsanalysis

Medard Boss
The following considerations in daseinsanalysis grew spontaneously
out of a series of audio-taped personal conversations with the editor of this
issue focusing on various critical problems one encounters in thinking about
the essential nature of human existence and of psychotherapy. The problems
fall for the most part into the field of study that is often called, in non-
phenomenological language, "personality theory." I qualify my designation
of this field of psychologists' concern for two reasons.
The first reason for my qualification is that one cannot adequately ap-
preciate the distinctive nature of human existence as long as one conceives
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of the human individual as a "person-ality," a kind of monad of conscious-

ness which is contained within but essentially separate from the world of
phenomena in which it exists. On the contrary, the human being, phenomen-
ologically seen, is always out there in his or her world and, indeed, exists as
nothing but this being-there (Da-sein). From this point of view any concep-
tion of a "person-ality" as distinct from the world and delimited by the epider-
mis contradicts one of the fundamental characteristics of human existence.
The individual is world, is there; and this inimitable "being-there" is the in-
dividual. Human existence always reveals itself as a Being-in-the-world and
is never anything other than an unobjectifiable realm of world-openness into
which everything that has to be may shine forth and unveil itself.
The other reason for my qualification of the use of the term "personality
theory" has to do with the second element of the term, "theory." As a
phenomenologist one always does one's best to avoid theory just in order to
approach more freely the phenomena themselves just as they present them-
selves. Beginning most notably with Husserl, it has been the long-standing
appeal of phenomenologists "to return to the things themselves." Martin
Heidegger, a student of Husseri's and the originator of Daseinsanalytik, the
fundamental-ontological analysis of human be-ing,1 carried on this basic ap-
peal, though admittedly in quite a different way. In any case, the dasein-
sanalytic demand to allow phenomena "to speak for themselves" constitutes
a radical rejection of the use of psychological theory to understand human
existence. Following the demand, we do our best to avoid making conjec-
tures, hypotheses or inferences about things and instead we try to allow what
is seen and heard to present itself on its own terms.
These qualifications aside, however, the problems which are taken up
in the following pages are among some of the most challenging for anyone
who chooses to engage in serious systematic thinking about human nature.
Although some thought has been given to the most appropriate sequence for
presenting these issues in this article, the considerations themselves occurred
independently of one another and should be read with this in mind. It should
 Recent Considerations in Daseinsanalysis 59

also be remembered that the reflections originated as personal conversations

and that certain aspects of this conversational style will appear from time to
time. The considerations begin with a discussion of Heidegger's under-
standing of the meaning of Being in the various senses of the term employed
by Heidegger himself. Following this, there is a consideration of the dasein-
sanalytic use of the term "mind" or "soul" in psychology. The final two
reflections focus on the meaning of "possibility" and of "freedom" respec-
tively. In each of the final considerations some thought is given to the sig-
nificance of these matters for the practicing psychotherapist.
On Heidegger's Understanding of Being
In his magnum opus, Being and Time, Heidegger (1962) noted that, in
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philosophy, the whole tradition of metaphysics up to that time had only con-
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sidered the different kinds of being, that is, the "being-ness" of beings, - e.g.,
the being of a tree or the being of a bee, always the being of something
without ever raising the question, "What is the meaning of Being as such?"
The traditional concern with the being-ness of a particular thing was for
Heidegger only a secondary question and therefore he raised the prior ques-
tion, and a new question for philosophy, which was, "What do we mean by
saying Being in the first place?" or "What is 'Being-ness as such'?"
For Heidegger, this "Being-ness as such" draws our attention not to the
being o/something but rather to the mere wonder that there is anything. And
this is a whole new matter. It does not refer to a particular thing but instead
refers to the fact that there is something at all. And this is the greatest
wonder: that there is something at all, for instead, there could just as easily
be nothing. But there is always something appearing to us. We are always
confronted with something which is revealing itself to us. To understand
what Heidegger meant by "Being as such," "Being-ness as such" or simply
"Being-ness" one must not think in terms of the kind of being of this thing
or that thing, for example, the being of a chair or a tree or a human being or
a bee, but only of the puzzle that there is something at all. This is the ques-
tion which troubled Heidegger all of his life and "wore out" his life, so to
speak: "Why are there beings at all, and why not rather nothing?" (Heideg-
ger, 1977, p. 112).
In thinking about "Being-ness as such" or "Being-ness" one must al-
ways understand it verbally, in the sense of the very act or event of Being's
appearance, the very "coming to light" or illuminating of Being. "Being-
ness" is the event of unconcealment and this coming-into-presence (An-
wesen) must always continue if anything is to be at all. If this fundamental
"Being-ness," this illuminating, were to stop, then everything would disap-
pear and nothing could be any longer; the world would vanish and nothing
would remain, not only as a particular being but also as being at all.
The question of the meaning of Being in general was so important to
Heidegger that he took great pains in deciding how to write the word for
 60 MedardBoss

"Being-ness" or "Being-ness as such." Sometimes he wrote it as Seyn, using

the old German spelling for Being, in order to distinguish his meaning for
Being in general from the word Sein which was commonly used in
philosophy to refer to the object-category of Being or to the kind of being of
beings ("being-ness" [lower case]). At other times he would write the word
Sein and then cross it out (Sfeijj) to make it clear that this "Being-ness as
such" or this revealing was not just another being or kind of being but, on
the contrary, that it was no thing at all, that it was in fact Nothing. However,
this is not a nihilistic Nothing but, quite the opposite, it is the essentially
abundant "No-thing-ness" which makes it possible for anything to be, which
provides the clearing for all of the things of this world to be! So you can't
even say that "Being-ness" is, for that would make it appear as one of the
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many beings that make up our world. Instead, you always have to under-
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stand this "Being-ness" as the very event of illumination and appearance per
se in the openness of a human existence.
In addition to this "Being-ness as such" Heidegger spoke about Seiend-
heit or "being-ness" (lower case, see footnote 2), by which he meant the kind
of being which "belongs" to specific things or beings. There is, for instance,
the "being-ness" of the chair or the "being-ness" of you and it is clear that
the chair has a different land of being than you. This "being-ness" then is
the kind of being or the special or essential nature of being which is shared
by all of the beings in any particular category. For instance, on a very mun-
dane level, the chair is made of wood and you of flesh; wood and flesh are
different forms of being. Likewise, and more to the heart of the matter, all
chairs have a special essence or "meaning-fullness" which makes them what
they are and which they share with all other chairs. Also all human beings
have an essential kind of being which they have in common with all other
human beings. Therefore every category of being embodies a particular es-
sential kind of being, a particular meaningful constitution or essence which
Heidegger called "being-ness."
Next, there is the whole world of particular beings, that is, all of these
specific concrete things which appear to us in any and every moment of our
existence. There is that particular chair which you are sitting in now; there
is this particular table between us. I am this particular human being sitting
in this chair and you are that particular human being who is silting there. So
the German terms "das Seicnde" and "Seiendcs," which Heidegger recom-
mended translating as "being" or "particular being," refer to these very par-
ticular, concrete instances of the appearances of things or beings. In other
words, "being" or "particular being" refers to each of the many entities or
things or beings which, taken together, make up the world with which we
find ourselves existing.
Now, of course, knowing and speaking about any of these meanings of
"Being" is only possible because there is such a being as Da-sein, as human
be-ing. For human beings are, to our knowledge, the only beings who have
 Recent Considerations in Daseinsanalysis 61

the capacity to serve as the openness into which everything else can appear
and reveal itself. Da-sein is required for any of the above meanings of Being
to appear. This is, in fact, a human being's highest calling: to serve as this
possibility for Being to show itself, to shine forth and reveal itself. Without
such an openness as Da-sein, there would be only darkness and nothing could
ever reveal itself as the meaningful thing that it is. In order for anything to
show itself, appear, shine forth or be there needs to be an openness into which
it can enter. This openness is Da-sein. No particular beings (Seiendes), no
kind of being (Seiendheit), and certainly not "Being-ness as such" (Seyn or
Seijj) could appear without Da-sein. Therefore, Da-sein is the shepherd of
Being, that particular "particle" of Being which permits all other Being to
appear, to reveal itself as that which it is. This is Da-sein's essential voca-
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tion, for "Being-ness" requires human existence to perpetuate the openness

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so that what is may continue to be.

The interdependence of Being and Da-sein is the heart of Heidegger's
discovery of "Ereignis" (only poorly translated "e-vent"), which means not
only that a human openness is required for anything to become present, or
to be, but also that the openness of Da-sein itself, in turn, requires Being in
order for it (Da-sein) to be. In other words, the "light-of-human-existence"
and "everything-else-that-is" require one another and "call on" one another
in a unified, inseparable "e-vent." Ereignis is the indivisible unity of the ap-
peal of Being to Da-sein and of Da-sein's response to this appeal. Without
the light of human existence no being can be and, likewise, without some-
thing to encounter and reveal there can be no human existence. Da-sein is
the openness which is called upon to serve as the realm into which some-
thing may reveal itself as present, that is, as being "pre-sent" or "senl-into"
Being (Anwesen). And, at the same time, Being is that which gives Da-sein
its primordial home, a home in language and light. Heidegger considered
Ereignis his deepest insight and, when you think about it, you begin to see
that this relationship between Being and Da-sein not only makes psycho-
therapy possible in the first place, but also gives psychotherapy its most fun-
damental purpose, that is, for the therapist to respond to the appeal of the
patient to be.
It is important to realize that as human beings we are never alone in this
calling to respond to Being. We are always together with other human
beings, whether in a physical or a "mental" way, and therefore never isolated
in this humble but dignified vocation. Other human beings, who are of the
same constitution of Being as we are, are together-with-us building up this
light of the world, allowing the things of the world to reveal themselves out
of primordial darkness. And this is our fundamental existential together-
ness. Of course we do not exist only as this "being-together-with-others"
since we are also very unique, particular, specific human individuals. In
other words, we exist in a way which Heidegger calls Jemeinigkeit which
means "mine-ness" or "own-self-ness." In this way Heidegger reminds us
 62 MedardBoss

that every human existence, though fundamentally together-with- others, is

also an existence of "its-own." Every Da-sein is an existence with its own
specific and unique assemblage of human possibilities. You are a very dis-
tinct bundle of possibilities or capacities which now come together in this
particular way. There is no one in the world just like you and this unique
particularity belongs to you alone. This isyour "mine-ness,"}>our "own-self-
ness" and no one else's.
Given these thoughts about the meaning of Being and of Da-sein, we
can see that daseinsanalysis may have more than one meaning. It can be
used to refer to a way of understanding the world, a way of seeing and un-
derstanding the essence of the world, of human beings and of the relation-
ship between the two. But, today daseinsanalysis may also be used to refer
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to an approach to psychotherapy which is concerned with freeing individuals

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to fulfill their own-most possibilities for being with things and with other
human beings. Although all serious psychotherapies are concerned with this
very thing, with liberating individuals from the suffering and constriction
which prevents them from being themselves, only daseinsanalysis has a
philosophical understanding which comprehends and legitimizes this as the
goal and purpose of psychotherapy in the first place. Only daseinsanalysis
sees human beings as the very freedom and openness which may be used to
call forth the freedom and openness of fellow human beings. In other words,
only daseinsanalysis helps us to understand how psychotherapy is possible
at all.

On the Meaning of "Mind" or "Soul"

The question of the essence of human nature has been a central concern
of philosophy and psychology from the very beginning of these human en-
deavors. Lying at the center of this question and presenting thinkers with
some of their most thorny intellectual challenges has been the fundamental-
ly immaterial nature of human existence. Indeed, the etymological origins
of the word "psychology" (psycho + logy: "psyche, mind or soul" plus "dis-
course, speech or reason") bring us directly to the problem, referring as they
do to "the discourse about the psyche or the human soul." Naturally, daseins-
analysts are also concerned wilh the fundament of human existence which
has been referred to as the "psyche," "soul," or "mind." In fact, in the article
prior to this I was quoted, and accurately so, as saying, "We are nothing but
a 'mind,' fundamentally, and I have even recently published a book entitled
On the Wingspan of the Soul (Von der Spannweite der Seele, 1982). But all
of these metaphysical sounding terms for the fundament of human existence
fall far short of the task of adequately conceiving that essential characteris-
tic of human be-ing which Heidegger sought to convey with his simple but
telling denotation of human existence as Da-sein, as being-the-fAere, refer-
ring to the fact that the "human-being-as-perceivingness" extends into its
world, its there.
 Recent Considerations in Daseinsanalysis 63

Freud himself, of course, had his own difficulties with conveying his
understanding of the fundament of human existence and ultimately "called
on" the Greek word Psyche, which means soul (in German, Seele), to desig-
nate this immaterial foundation of human existence. Freud clearly under-
stood that the basis of human existence was fundamentally related to the
human being's immaterial nature and he tried to show this in a variety of
ways. For example he sometimes referred to "the "spirit" or "mind" (Geist)
or that which was "spiritual" or "immaterial" (geistig) and, at other times, to
"the soul" (Seele) or that which was "of the soul" (seelisch). He also fre-
quently used the term "the life of the soul" (Seelenleben). With all of these
terms Freud was trying to describe the "mental," "spiritual" or "immaterial"
foundation of the human being's essential nature, that fundament of human
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existence which is constituted primarily by consciousness and meaning and

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with which he had become so concerned as a scientist and physician.

One of the difficulties in considering these problems is the tendency to
fall into the habit of using metaphysical ideas and concepts. Freud, for ex-
ample, fell prey to this habit by coining such terms as the "psychic apparatus"
(Seelisher Apparat), the "id" (das Es, literally, "the It"), the "Ego" (das Ich,
"the I") and the super-ego (das Uber-Ich, "the over-I"). In fact, it was only
as a result of his metaphysical view of the mind as a psychic apparatus with
a life of its own that Freud could conclude that the mind is not equated with
awareness and that there is a whole domain of autonomous and meaningful
mental activity which remains completely outside our conscious awareness.
In other words, it was Freud's metaphysical kind of thinking about mind that
led him to suggest the paradoxical and utterly contradictory notion that
human "consciousness" was largely unconscious!
The question that is raised here, therefore, is how can we understand
the human being's essence, that is, this thing we call "mind" or "soul" without
falling prey to the kinds of metaphysical concoctions which have so plagued
philosophers and psychologists including such a great thinker as Freud.
A Realm of World-Openness
First of all we must acknowledge the great help we have received from
Heidegger in this task merely by his coining of the term Da-sein as "Being-
Xhe-there" to describe and denote human existence. For this single term
makes it clear on the basis of the phenomenon of human perceivingness per
se that we exist as an openness and a shining forth, as a standing out into our
world, and not merely as one object thing alongside other object things.
Heidegger described the essential nature of Da-sein as a "clearing," a "realm
of openness," or a "a laminating realm " thus referring directly to the human
capacity for "making room" for things, for "observing" or "becoming aware"
of all that is. Heidegger never intended to imply, however, that this "realm
of world illumination" was anything like a container or apparatus which was
filled with ideas and images since such a substantive ideation (Vorstellung)
 64 Medard Boss

fails to encompass and comprehend the fundamentally miraculous and ver-

bal essence of this "realm-wig."
A Realm of Apprehension. The German term, "Bereich von Verneh-
men," which means something like an "area of recognition" or "apprehen-
sion" comes closer to what actually reveals itself when we consider our be-
havior of "being conscious." Bereich von Vernehmen refers to "realm of
perceiving and understanding." Nehmen, the root word, is the verb used,
for example, in ordering something in a restaurant. One might say, "Ich
nehme einen cafe"," "I'll take a coffee." By such a mundane remark we mean
much more, however, than the simple fact that we will remove something
from the hand of the waiter, much more than this. For already we are in-
dicating that we perceive and understand what such a thing as a coffee is and
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to what use it might be put: we understand immediately that we may take it

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into our existence by smelling, tasting, and enjoying it, perhaps even with
the hope of being awakened by it. So we see that the physical way of receiv-
ing something (nehmen) is predicated on the mental capacity for perceiving
and understanding (vernehmen) what this something is in the first place. Of
course you also have these same meanings in English with the word "per-
ceive," for example, the Latin root for which is "capere," meaning "to grasp"
in the physical sense, in contrast to "precipere," meaning to grasp or under-
stand mentally. So our very language reveals that it is our mental possibility
for grasping something that enables us to initiate and carry out our physi-
cal possibilities for relating to things. Right now, you understand that this
thing here in front of us is a table and, with this, you understand that a table
is used to support things, to support or hold something up so that whatever
it holds is more accessible for our use. When you see a table, you recognize
this meaning, you immediately receive or grasp this meaningfulness. You
don't, for instance, perceive a great assembly of molecules arranged in such
and such a fashion and then abstract from this to a conception of table. On
the contrary, as soon as you see the table you are receiving it into your ex-
istence and grasping your immediate relationship to it. Only having done
this may you then wittingly decide how you will behave physically, towards
it. This shows you that you are primarily a realm of becoming aware of
things, a realm of receiving and apprehending the meaningfulness of that
which you encounter. And this is what we are always trying to convey,
though so poorly, with the word "mind."
A Realm of Responsiveness. Heidegger also used the term "Bereich von
Ansprechtbarkeit" to indicate that the human individual exists as one who is
able to be spoken to or addressed. Ansprechbar comes from "sprechen"
meaning "to speak and therefore, "ansprechen" refers to the capacity for
recognizing and responding to some kind of address. So "Bereich von
Ansprechtbarkeit" means "a realm of "responsiveness" and to be such a
realm naturally presupposes that we are capable of being spoken to and of
understanding what it is that speaks to us. We can say, for example, that
 Recent Considerations in Daseinsanalysis 65

when we see a red light signal "it tells us" to stop; or that when we see a road
"it tells us" we can travel there and go one way or another; or that when we
see a tree, a young sapling, for instance, "it tells us" something is living and
growing here and this particular something we call a tree. In other words
the traffic signal "speaks to us" of its "signal-ness," the road of its "road-
ness," the tree of its "tree-ness." We understand these meanings and respond
or answer, first, by our understanding in itself and, second, by our behaving
or relating in an appropriate fashion. In this way we can see that it is only
because we "have a mind," so to speak, or, more phenomenologically, it is
only because we exist as a realm of responsiveness that we may recognize
and relate to what encounters us. In other words, the fact that things may
address us and that we may answer them presupposes our very constitution
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as a Bereich von Ansprechtbarkeit, a realm of being spoken to and of answer-

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ing-ness."
A Realm ofEk-sistence. So there is always the speech, die Sprache: our
"greeting," "talking with" and responding to the things we encounter. All of
this can only occur if we exist as a realm of openness and "light," a so-called
"mental" realm. But always in order to understand this we must reject any
conception of an apparatus which "represents" things inside itself as if it were
some kind of device that records images and ideas while being separate from
and on the periphery of the world of the things themselves. Da-sein's
luminating realm is in no way substanlive but rather it is the happening of
the human capacity for being aware and for understanding. So, now we see
that human beings exist primarily and most essentially as a realm of world-
illumination, a realm of apprehension and responsiveness, a clearing for
relating to all that is. Such an understanding of human existence discloses
our nature as beings who stand out (ek-stasis) into our worlds, who extend
as far as our worlds in space as well as in time, continuing to the most dis-
tant corner, to the very most remote thing we can perceive or recall or im-
agine. In other words, we are out there in the world and this being-there is
where we are, how we are, how we exist. There is where we are. There is
our existence. There!

Heidegger and India: A Remarkable Correspondence

The human realm of world-openness is what we in the West call "mind."
In India they do not call this "mind" but instead they use the Sanskrit word,
Atman which simply means "light" or "realm of light. So as I now under-
stand it, the Indian term, Atman, may be used, at least roughly, as the
equivalent of Da-sein. In using the term Atman, the Indians were guided by
the same fundamental insight into the nature of human existence, as Heideg-
ger was in coining the term Da-scin. It is interesting that in ancient India
and then much later here in the Black Forest this same kind of fundamental
understanding of human existence appeared, an understanding which pene-
trates to the very essence of Being. The wise men in India and Heidegger
 66 Medard Boss

here in Germany, both recognized the same fundamentally open and luminat-
ing character of human existence.
Remarkably, the correspondence between the thinking of Heidegger
and of the wise men of the East did not end at that point, for toward the end
of Heidegger's life there emerged an even more profound similarity concern-
ing the relation of Da-sein or Atman to Being-ness as such. For many cen-
turies in India Atman has been understood to be only a feature of Brahman,
the fundamental universal luminating out of which everything, including
Atman, may come into the light, into presence or being. The light of human
existence, or Atman (Da-sein), is therefore only a "particle," only a very
small particle of Brahman. Consequently it was always understood in India
that even the light of Atman required the previous opening or lighting of
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Brahman. The understanding of this independent, primordial opening of

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Brahman is known in India as the doctrine of "chit." Originally, Heidegger

had said, in Being and Time for instance, that human existence, the human
"Da," was the only openness or light (Lichtung) and that all other Being re-
quired Da-sein's "clearing" in order to be at all. But then many years later
Heidegger came to understand that even for the human "Da," the human
clearing, to come into its being a pre-human clearing, openness or light was
required. He realized only then that this pre-human light, this "clearing (lich-
tende) from the ground up," was the most fundamental precondition for
Being. So in his later teaching Heidegger said that in order for Dasein to ap-
pear an already deeper, more fundamental opening is required. After all,
nothing, not even Da-sein, can come into its being without the possibility of
being "present," without "pre-sence," without a "coming-mto-presence," a
"coming-into-being" somewhere. Heidegger's term for this "coming-into-
presence" is Anwesen, the same word that is used to describe the clearing
or premises of the peasant's farm. Even in this old vulgar use of the word
Anwesen, it is apparent that were it not for such a clearing, the peasant's cot-
tage and everything around it could never have come into its existence in the
first place. It is therefore always true that nothing can appear without an
openness or a clearing into which it may do so. There has to be an openness
and a light into which the "esse," the existent, may enter and rise into its
being. For Da-sein, this openness and light is the pre-human openness and
light which the Indian calls Brahman.7 So Heidegger's thinking finally cor-
responded even in this most profound way to the Indian doctrine of "Chit."
In both the late Heidegger and in ancient Indian thinking we now find an un-
derstanding of the fact that there is an openness and a light that serves as the
clearing for the openness and light of human existence itself to shine forth.
On the Significance of Human Possibility
For many centuries now, going back to the middle ages and even to an-
cient times, philosophers have distinguished between possibility, necessity
and actuality. Each of these, including possibility, is a kind of Being. For
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12. A painting by Medard Boss: a peasant's farm (Anwesen)

 68 MedardBoss
instance, your possibilities right now for singing, for going skiing or for
walking in the woods are each beings because everything about which you
can say, "It is," is a being. All of these things here in this room are also
beings. This chair is a being. This couch is a being. Everything that is is a
being. And so every possibility is also a being.
Although in philosophy possibility may have a number of different
meanings, in daseinsanalysis and particularly in daseinsanalytic psycho-
therapy we are primarily concerned with the meaning of possibility as poten-
tiality, as ability or capacity, a meaning which may be traced as far back as
Aristotle. And of course our primary concern is with those potentialities,
capacities or possibilities that constitute Da-sein, the human being. Natural-
ly other kinds of beings also have possibilities, for example, an animal has
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the possibility to eat or to run through the field and a tree has the possibility
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to grow, to become diseased and to die. But a tree probably does not have
the capacity to understand that it has these possibilities. As far as we know
only human beings have this capacity.
Since, as human beings, we exist as a being which understands Being,
we have a degree of freedom which does not belong to any other kind of
being. Through our own world-illuminating essence we not only allow
things to shine forth and become what they are but also choose the kind of
relationship we will have to that which reveals itself. Our very existence as
perceiving and understanding beings endows us with the possibility of
choosing how we will relate to what encounters us: we can pay attention to
it or ignore it; accept it or reject it; approach it or withdraw from it; love it
or fear it. These are all different possibilities for relating to what shows it-
self in the light of Da-sein. So we can say that our entire existence is made
up of possibilities, that we exist as a bundle of possibilities for relating to the
world.
Not all of our possibilities, naturally, can be carried out at the same
time. In any given moment we can carry out only one constellation of pos-
sibilities while all our other possibilities remain in abeyance, unearned out.
Therefore, we always have to decide which of our possibilities we will carry
out, into which of our possibilities we will allow ourselves to become ab-
sorbed. You cannot, for instance, discuss daseinsanalysis here with me now
and, at the same time, sing in an opera. Of course I don't know if you can
hold a tune at all but even if you couldn't you would still have the possibility
to go down to the opera house and give it a try. The important point is that
you are the one responsible for choosing among all of your possibilities and
this responsibility is with you, not just now, but in every moment of your ex-
istence.
Incidentally, I have been careful here not to suggest that certain pos-
sibilities are "realized" or "actualized" while others are not, for, as I have
said, every possibility is a being and therefore every possibility is "real" or
"actual." The terms "to actualize" or "to realize," can be very misleading
 Recent Considerations in Daseinsanalysis 69

since they can imply that some possibilities are less real or less actual than
others. I therefore prefer to say that Da-sein exists as a whole assembly of
possibilities for being in the world and that in any given moment it may "carry
out" only one of these while each of the others remain simply "unearned
out"
This understanding of the human being as an assembly of possibilities
for perceiving and relating to the world is a constant concern of the psycho-
therapist in his or her practice. The therapist understands that patients have
a choice about which of their possibilities they will carry out and which they
will hold in abeyance. The therapist also understands that it is the patients
themselves who are responsible for choosing which of their possibilities they
will carry out and which they will leave fallow. Of course, here is precise-
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ly the point where the daseinsanalytic question, "Why not?" takes on its sig-
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nificance for psychotherapy. For above all, this question is an invitation to

patients to consider a fuller range of their own possibilities for existing and
to assume responsibility for choosing which of these possibilities they will
carry not only in the present moment but also in each moment which ap-
proaches them from their own future.
On the Significance of Freedom in Daseinsanalysis
And now we come to the last of our considerations: the significance of
freedom in daseinsanalysis. Usually we think of freedom in terms of the
individual's free will (Willensfreiheit). By this we mean simply the human
being's capacity for choosing between one thing and another. For example,
you are choosing right now to pay attention to our discussion of dasein-
sanalysis and not to be gazing out at the scenery through the window. Even
before this, you chose to come here and to behave and relate in this conver-
sational manner with me as opposed to going for a walk or singing in an
opera. In order to be able to make such choices in the first place, however,
you must already "possess" an even more basic freedom and this more basic
freedom is your fundamental openness (Lichtung) as a human being.
Obviously, the freedom to choose can only exist if, prior to this, a num-
ber of things, a number of beings and of human possibilities for relating to
these beings, had already appeared and revealed themselves to you. If noth-
ing or even if only one thing is able to appear to you at any given moment,
then you are unable to exercise any capacity to choose. Always a multi-
plicity of things must reveal themselves to you before you can employ your
free will to choose from among them.
Therefore, the primordial basis for freedom is the openness, the Lich-
tung, of human existence and only out of the precondition of this fundamen-
tal freedom of world-openness are you able to exercise your freedom of will
by choosing to be concerned with one thing or another, for instance, with
daseinsanalysis or with the music of an opera. It is also only on the basis of
this original openness that you can choose how you will relate to your chosen
 70 Medard Boss

concern, for example in the first case, by thinking about daseinsanalysis on

your own or by speaking with me; or, in the second case, by listening to a
recording of an opera or singing an aria yourself. So in any situation, at any
time, there may be a number of things that appear to us as well as a number
of possibilities for relating to these things and this is only possible because
we exist originally as an open realm of perceiving and understanding. This
basic precondition for freedom is the single most significant "fact" about
freedom which daseinsanalysis reveals for it responds to the question, "Why
is there freedom at all?"
Naturally, the individual's free will is, in itself, a very important fea-
ture of human existence. It is a remarkable endowment to be able, by virtue
of our fundamental openness, to choose, first from among a multitude of
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things precisely what we will relate to and, second, from among a host of
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human possibilities exactly how we will relate and behave. But in dasein-
sanalysis we never begin by insisting that patients simply "exert" their free
will as if it were some kind of independent force somewhere "within" them.
On the contrary, daseinsanalysis reveals free will as a "mere" capacity to
choose, a capacity which is best appropriated particular manner for which
individual patients themselves are open and ready at any given moment in
their lives. Becoming free does not mean that patients must strain to dis-
cover their so-called "internal will power" but, rather, it means growing in
the readiness to appropriate the freedom of perception, understanding and
response which is already "theirs" and which has been "theirs" from the
beginning.
In spite of the remarkable capacity for freedom which is ours as human
beings, it must also be said that we definitely are not capable of anything like
absolute freedom; we are not free to perceive and to do whatever we wish in
any given moment of our lives, to follow continuously our every caprice.
Such absolute freedom is never a human possibility, for our freedom, like
human existence itself, is always finite, always limited and bound, not only
by the particular nature of human existence per se, but also by our own in-
herent individual constellation of capacities and incapacities, as well as the
various material, social, political, and economic circumstances which im-
pinge on us in every moment of our lives. In other words, we are always and
at once both free and unfree. However, in addition to this ubiquitous exis-
tential circumscription of freedom, the fundamental unfreedom of being
human, the capacity for freedom is even further circumscribed and impaired
in neurotically troubled individuals. Such neurotic unfreedom always dis-
closes a privation of what is necessary for carrying out a full and authentic
human existence and it is this very privation that becomes the major concern
of therapy or analysis. In fact the main goal of psychotherapy, as Freud him-
self essentially recognized, is to liberate individuals from their unnecessary
constraints, from their neurotic incapacity to be addressed by a multiplicity
 Recent Considerations in Daseinsanalysis 71

of phenomena and to consider a variety of appropriate and wholesome pos-

sibilities for responding and relating to these phenomena.
Now, it may be asked, "If Da-sein is so primordially free and open and
comes into its existence with an inherent capacity for making choices, then
how does it happen that human beings may become so unfree, so neurotical-
ly impaired and imprisoned?" The answer to this question is simply that no
one, not even the most fortunate among us, encounters a world which is al-
ways concerned with preserving the fundamental openness and freedom of
human existence. Severely neurotic individuals in particular have been espe-
cially influenced by their parents, friends, teachers and other people who
have constantly told them what they must or must not do or say. From the
time they were very young children they always heard, "You must not do
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this" or "You must not touch that." When human beings are young children
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they are especially fragile and vulnerable, and - not having the strength or
experience to judge for themselves what is right or wrong, appropriate or in-
appropriate, dangerous or safe - they are easily influenced in their freedom
by the adults in their world. Therefore, as a child one may easily "fall prey"
to the will of other individuals by following them, by accepting and fulfill-
ing their taboos and prescriptions as if their attitudes and convictions were
one's own. Heidegger spoke about this problem as the human being's vul-
nerability to becoming absorbed in the "They" (das Man) and, in thus fall-
ing prey to the wills and ways of others, to losing the freedom to be one's
own authentic self. How close, in essence, Freud came to this very same in-
sight when he wrote, for example, "A small living creature is a puny thing,
powerless against the mighty outside world which is full of destructive [i.e.,
repressive] agencies. A primitive being... is prey to all these 'trauma'"
(1926, p. 202, brackets and emphasis mine). So we see that both Freud and
Heidegger were acknowledging one essential truth, though admittedly from
very different philosophical foundations, that truth being: that the human
being may so easily lose sight of its own original freedom and openness by
falling victim to the verdicts and views of others.
Naturally, this neurotic pattern of privation is only one of many ways
by which human beings may lose their original openness and freedom. There
is also the privation of accidents and illnesses. Brain injuries, for example,
are privational phenomena. But regardless of how the privation occurs, we
can say that originally Da-sein is free to consider and dispose (verfugen) of
its capacities and it is only by encountering some privational conditions) or
circumstance(s) that Da-sein is no longer able to make use of its original
openness and its freedom to dispose of its capacities in its own authentic
manner.
Therefore, psychotherapy has only one aim: to give back to neurotical-
ly crippled men and women their own original openness and freedom, to
return to them what was already "their own," that is, the freedom to dispose
of the possibilities of their own existence in a way that accords with their
 72 Medard Boss

own-most perceptions, judgements and talents. This is what daseinsanalysis

calls healthy: the free disposing and carrying out of one's own-most pos-
sibilities for being in the world. Of course, this condition may be called
"healthy" only because it corresponds exactly with what human existence is
originally, that is, a Be-ing which serves as an open and free sphere of per-
ceiving and answering correspondingly to that which is revealing itself in
the clearing of individual existence. Unhealthiness is nothing but the priva-
tion, blocking, impairment or constriction of this original openness and
freedom. Naturally, returning the full use of a patient's own original open-
ness and freedom is not a quick nor an easy task. Depending on the length,
extent and depth of "injury" or privation, the restoration of freedom can take
a very long time and many hours of very hard work. But you also see this,
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on a purely physical level, where we find, for example, that individuals who
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receive a terrible burn are wounded in a way which takes a very long time
to heal. These individuals, in their very bodily being, have to "work" toward
the restoration of their full physical capacity twenty-four hours a day for
many months and perhaps even years. This is also the way it is for psycho-
therapy. The more profound the wound, the privation, the longer and har-
der will be the work in restoring to individuals what was already theirs
originally and from the beginning: that is, their full capacity for openness
and freedom, for freely disposing and carrying out their own special and
authentic possibilities for being in the world.

A Brief Final Word

In reflecting back now over the four concerns discussed above, it should
be apparent that, in practice, daseinsanalytic psychotherapy has much in
common with Freud's own effective conduct of the therapeutic situation.
However, as far as I have seen, daseinsanalysis is the only form of psycho-
therapy which has a philosophically adequate foundation for understanding
the phenomena which appear within that situation as well as the fundamen-
tal meaning of psychotherapy itself and how it is even possible in the first
place. Although many modern psychotherapies claim to be concerned, as
Freud was, with the revelation and liberation of individual human beings,
very few of these approaches, including Freud's, have an adequate under-
standing of the fundamental sense of truth and freedom upon which such
therapeutic goals are based. In fact, most psychotherapeutic theories lack
the grounds for comprehending the essential, meaning-full nature of the very
human existence with which they are so concerned. So while dasein-
sanalysis does not offer yet another fashionable compendium of novel
therapeutic techniques, it does justifiably claim to present today's therapist
with a thoughtful, philosophically sound understanding of the very founda-
tions of their work: that is, of the essential meaning-full structure of human
existence - of its presence and purpose, its health and illness, its freedom and
 Recent Considerations in Daseinsanalysis 73

possibility - as well as of the basic nature and direction of psychotherapy as

the unique form of human being-together which it is.

Footnotes
1. "Human be-ing" is written here in this hyphenated way to signify the verb, of
"be-ing" human as opposed to the noun human being. This hyphenated spell-
ing will be used often throughout this article to convey this verbal sense of the
human being's existing.

2. Readers will note that the terminology and translations used in the following
pages are consistent with my first English presentation of these concerns ex-
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actly twenty-five years ago (Boss, 1963, pp. 34f) and also with Heidegger's
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own carefully considered recommendations in this regard. There, and here, the
equivalent German terms "Sein," "Seyn," or "Seln" (see my discussion of each
of these further on in the main text), which refer to the most fundamental mean-
ing of Being which occupied Heidegger's thinking, that is, the meaning of
Being as such as opposed to the meaning of any particular being or of any kind
of being, are translated "Being-ness as such " or simply "Being-ness" (capita-
lized). The German "Seiendheit" which was the primary concern of
philosophers up to the time of Heidegger and which refers to the kind of being
of a particular being is translated "being-ness" (lower case). Finally the Ger-
man "das Seiende" or "Seiendes" which refers to each specific concrete occur-
rence of being (often translated "entity," as in Macquarrie's and Robinson's
translation of Being and Time) is translated here, also according to Heidegger's
recommendation as "being" or "particular being."

3. Although this use of the phrase "stands out" may seem somewhat odd to an
English reader, it is a quite literal translation of "Ekstasis" which Heidegger
uses to convey the sense of Dascin's "extension" into its world, writing it, "Ek-
stasis." Heidegger also coined the term "ck-sistenz" to convey this same sense.

4. I am referring here to Da-scin's fundamental sustaining structure or constitu-

tion as "understanding-of-Being" (Seinsverständnis): the fact that Da-sein ex-
ists as a being who in its be-ing is concerned with Being, that is, with under-
standing Being. (See also Heidegger's lengthy discussions of understanding-
of-Being in Chapter Four and the Appendix. - Editor)

5. Although in translating the equivalent terms for "mind" from Sanskrit to Ger-
man or English the term "mind" is often used without explanation, translators
are always aware that they have sacrificed the literal Sanskrit meanings in order
to achieve at least a moderate degree of mutual understanding.

6. Lichtende of "clear-ing" is the verb counterpart to the noun Lichtung, the clear-
ing. Here Boss is saying that the pre-human light, or in Indian thought, Brah-
man, is the most primordial event of open-ing or clear-ing- which occurs be-
hind, before and on behalf of all that is, allowing all that is to be. - Editor
 74 Medard Boss

7. As I have continued to think about the relationship between Heidegger's

thought and that of the Indian wise men, I have increasingly thought that there
is at least a rough correlation, not only between Atman and Da-sein, but also
between Brahman and Seyn ("Being-ness as such)." Although I never asked
Heidegger or the Indian wise men what they thought of these similarities or if
this comparison should be offered at all, it seems to me, as the only so-called
living bridge between the two, that the correspondence is at least worth con-
sidering.

8. In the preface of the recently published fourth edition (Boss, 1987b) of his book
on India, Boss mentions the "astonishing" moment when he first heard Heideg-
ger acknowledge his own recognition of this pre-human openness which In-
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dian thinkers had recognized for centuries. Boss's preface, entitled "After
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Thirty Years," has recently been translated in preparation for a new English
edition of A Psychiatrist Discovers India (1965). In this preface he quotes a
portion of Heidegger's talk directly: "But it required a wandering on mislead-
ing paths for decades to realize that the sentence in Being and Time 'the human
being's being-there is itself the clearing' has perhaps divined thinking's pith
(Sache) but has in no way adequately thought it, that is, presented it as a ques-
tion that has already reached the pith itself... The Analytik of Dasein does not
yet reach the clearing in its own right and more conclusively it also does not
reach that domain to which the clearing itself belongs" (Boss, 1987a, p. 9:
translation by Michael Eldred). In the fourth edition of Indienfahrt (1987b),
Boss noted that the above quoted talk has been published posthumously
(Heidegger, 1984) by Heidegger's son, Hermann Heidegger.

9. I put this word, possess, in quotation marks since we do not really possess such
fundamental characteristics but rather we exist as them. It is all too easy to slip
into the habit of thinking that Grst there is a Da-sein and then this Da-sein "takes
possession of" its basic traits (existentialia). In Sanskrit and Hindi there is no
word for the idea of possession! Even if you buy something in India there is
no way to say that you possess it but only that you are close to it. There is no
way to say "this belongs to me" but only that "I am close to it" (mere pass).