What is Existential Psychoanalysis?

Young Girl Looking Out of a Window, Painting by Laurits Andersen Ring, 1885

Existential psychoanalysis came as a philosophical response to the scientific and deterministic focuses of Freudian psychology and natural science more broadly. Instead of relying on the mechanical models of the mind, existential psychoanalysts draw from the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl and the existential philosophies of Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Martin Buber to gain a more authentic understanding of the human condition. This school of thought does not fully reject Freud’s techniques but critiques the worldview implicit in his theories, particularly the reduction of human experiences to biological and unconscious drives. Existential analysts argue that therapy must begin from the patient's own lived experience, rather than from abstract scientific hypotheses.

Ludwig Binswanger integrated Heidegger’s ontological framework to better grasp his patients’ experiences. He emphasized that understanding patients through their existence-in-the-world led to deeper therapeutic insights, while maintaining many of Freud’s clinical methods. His contemporary, Medard Boss, even suggested that existential analysis could more faithfully realize Freud’s therapeutic goals than Freud’s own theory. This philosophical reinterpretation sought to clarify the human meaning embedded in psychoanalytic treatment, not necessarily to revise its procedures. Therefore, existential psychoanalysis remained a complement rather than an alternative to Freudian practices.

In the United States, however, existential psychoanalysis moved from its European roots, often becoming a substitute for Freudian approaches. Many American practitioners reinterpreted the analyst-patient relationship through the lens of existential encounters inspired by Buber or Sartre, which favoured descriptive, phenomenological understanding as a therapeutic act in itself. This led to many therapies being labeled “existentialist” regardless of their philosophical depth, particularly when they deviated from Freudian norms or rejected scientific frameworks. Such developments highlight the importance of returning to the movement’s foundation, grasping the patient’s being from within their lived reality, not from external theoretical constructs.

The Look Out, Painting by Henry Scott Tuke, 1886

The existential critique centers on the philosophical divide between subject and object established by thinkers like Descartes. Psychology’s attempt to study consciousness as if it were a detached object among others has led to contradictions. Freud’s genius was in grounding consciousness not in physiology, but in instinctual meaning, which retained some link to subjective experience. However, existentialists argue that even this reduction rests on the flawed assumption that psychological factors can be treated as naturalistic facts. They maintain that consciousness is not a thing but an intentional act that is always directed toward something.

This notion of intentionality, focused on by Husserl and expanded by Heidegger, is crucial to existential psychoanalysis. It insists that consciousness and human existence are defined by their relationship to the world, not separable from it. Heidegger’s concept of being-in-the-world reflects this integration, emphasizing that humans are always embedded in contexts of possibility and choice. From this view, the task of existential psychoanalysis is to uncover each person’s unique way of inhabiting their world. It seeks to understand these experiences rather than reducing individuals to universal drives or unconscious structures.