The Phenomenological Approach in Psychosomatic Practice: A Case Study of a Patient with Dyspeptic Complaints

Abstract

The treatment of psychosomatic symptoms often requires specific psychotherapeutic guidance. Some schools and psychological approaches are grounded in the phenomenological approach to the person, that is, in their subjective experience and immediate lived reality. Daseinsanalytic psychotherapy, which is based principally on what is referred to as the philosophy of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger. Daseinsanalysis involves analysing the patient’s “being there” (Dasein) and their mode of relating to the world, including to themselves (the “world-relation”). The human mode of being (existence, Dasein) is defined by specific attributes (interpretations of being, or clues) – “existentials”. These number around twenty, including: being-in-the-world, openness, attunement, mortality, temporality, corporeality, authenticity, etc. The therapist works using a phenomenological method, i.e. focusing on what emerges in the session as a “phenomenon”, that is, an immediately evident element of reality that is original, irreducible, and non-translatable and that carries a certain meaning. The search for meaning (i.e. interpretation of the phenomena) defines this therapy as “hermeneutic”: it is essentially a process of self-clarification of understanding. The therapist conducts sessions in a non-directive manner, working in a mode of “leaping-ahead” care. Rather than intervening directly, the therapist creates a space in which the client can discover and realise their own possibilities of being. Describing a case of a patient with gastrointestinal difficulties, the following case study, accompanied by several comments, aims to illustrate some of the above-mentioned procedures using a practical example of the application of the daseinsanalytic method. Following short-term psychotherapy, the patient already exhibits signs of emerging from an unfree mode of existence, demonstrates improved self-awareness and understanding of the world, and reports relief from somatic complaints.