Heidegger and Freud: A comment on the paper “Truth, anxiety and the contribution of Heidegger’s phenomenological ontology to psychoanalytic conceptualization and practice” by Shoshani et al

ABSTRACT

My comment on the interdisciplinary study of Heidegger and Freud by Shoshani et al. is focused on the semantic and conceptual differences between these thinkers concerning the meaning of truth and the role of anxiety. Heidegger emphasizes truth as a philosophical goal, whereas for Freud truth is a challenge to study the dynamic functions of the human mind by avoiding predetermined answers. The authors describe convincingly how Heidegger and Freud tread on the same phenomenological terrain. Their approaches differ, however, in their respective goals. For Heidegger, the goal is a new philosophical understanding of the sense of being defined by him as Dasein. For Freud, the goal is to understand the dynamics of the human mind in a two-person clinical relationship. This difference in their goals also implies a difference in their ontological approach. On the other hand, Shoshani et al. highlight the value of Heidegger’s view of anxiety as a trigger that calls for a search for increased understanding. According to the authors, this point is important, as it opens a shared humane way to treat people with severely disturbed mental conditions. In this respect, the understanding of the meaning of anxiety by Heidegger can also inspire clinical work and thereby open perspectives common with psychoanalysis.

KEYWORDS:

• Heidegger
• freud
• truth
• anxiety
• birth experience

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. To describe the place of solitude in Heidegger’s work, the authors quote Julia Kristeva (2020): Humanity is rediscovering existential solitude, the meaning of limits and mortality.... we find it in philosophers, in Hegel and Heidegger.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Johannes Lehtonen

Johannes Lehtonen is a professor emeritus of psychiatry at the University of Eastern Finland and a member of the Finnish Psychoanalytical Society. He started his research in the 1970s by comparing psychoanalytical dream theory with the neurophysiology of dreaming. The parallels discovered in them opened an opportunity to integrate psychoanalysis with neurophysiology in a new way. Later, he widened the integration by suggesting that the screen for dream images (the dream screen as described by Lewin) is not a separate concept, but is related to the body ego, here following Freud’s definition of the body ego as a projection of the body surface. Together with a research team at the University of Eastern Finland, he has further tested the validity of this conception in empirical studies on the infant’s neurophysiological responses to infant−mother interaction as well as to breast-feeding. These studies revealed specific responses to the interaction with the mother in infants already in the neonatal age. Signs of an emerging connection between hunger satisfaction and sleep induction were also found. The phenomenological side of these studies has also led him to recognize the value of philosophical understanding of early mental development, of which the analysis of the Dasein concept can be seen as one example. He has published his research in articles in international journals and in chapters in books such as in The Power of Understanding by Aira Laine (ed.), Karnac 2004, Psychoanalysis and Neuroscience by Mauro Mancia (ed.), Springer 2006, The Seed of Madness by Vamik Volkan and Salman Akhtar (eds.), Karnac 2016, Art Therapy for Psychosis by Katherine Killick (ed.), Routledge 2017. He has also published two books in Finnish (Tietoisuuden ruumiillisuus 2011, Olemassaolon tunne 2022).