Ludwig Binswanger

The article presents Ludwig Binswanger’s approaches to psychoanalysis, psychiatry, and philosophy. His clinical practice in his sanatorium in Kreuzlingen, Switzerland close to the border to Germany was essentially determined by psychoanalysis and an individualized multiprofessional approach. Sigmund Freud supported this view—the published letters between him and Binswanger are important contributions of psychoanalytic and psychiatric history. In addition, Binswanger regarded philosophy as an essential foundation of psychiatry and psychoanalysis. He knew many psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, philosophers, and poets personally and exchanged many letters with them. First, he followed the phenomenological approach of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, later he was more identified with Martin Buber’s dialogical philosophy which he developed further. The article goes deeper into Binswanger’s central concepts and shows how important they became in the contemporary discussion where neurobiological, psychoanalytic, and sociological research shows new ways for psychiatric and psychotherapeutic practice.