Developmental Daseinsanalysis, a Hermeneutic Study

Abstract

While childhood is crucial to psychoanalytical understandings of adulthood, developmental theory is neglected within the Daseinsanalytical literature. Given the historical and theoretical relation between Freud’s work and that of Medard Boss, the founder of Daseinsanalysis, the present research will reconsider psychoanalytic perspectives on childhood in terms of Daseinsanalysis. The task is to identify key elements of the psychoanalytical developmental theories of S. Freud, A. Freud, Klein, Winnicott, Bowlby, Erikson, Mahler, and Bion, and then interpret those insights within a Daseinsanalytic framework. This dissertation will consider what a Daseinsanalytic child developmental theory might entail when in dialogue with psychoanalysis, which will include the question of existential freedom and authenticity, both in the infant and in the mother or primary caretaker. The proposed research will follow a hermeneutic path in which psychoanalytic theories of development will be considered within their larger context of psychoanalysis in general. Then each of these developmental theories will be reconsidered in light of Boss’s revisioning of psychoanalysis then, more specifically, in terms of the Daseinsanalytical structural understanding of human existence. Analysis hopes to reveal themes and concepts that correlate with both existing psychoanalytical developmental theories, as well as Daseinsanalytical thought. In conclusion will be a synthesis of these findings.