Binswanger and Existential Analysis
In the early 1950s, the young Michel Foucault took a keen interest in the method of existential analysis—Daseinsanalyse—developed by the Swiss psychiatrist Ludwig Binswanger. He gave a lecture course on this topic at the University of Lille in the spring of 1953 and wrote a detailed introduction to the 1954 French translation of Binswanger’s Dream and Existence (1930), in which he promised a forthcoming book that would “situate existential analysis within the development of contemporary reflection on man.” This book presents Foucault’s unpublished manuscript on Binswanger and existential analysis for the first time in English, offering crucial insight into his intellectual development.

Foucault carries out a systematic examination of Daseinsanalyse, contrasting it with psychiatry, psychoanalysis, and phenomenology and championing its ambition to understand mental illness. In his critique of existential analysis, Foucault began his turn toward emphasizing the primacy of experience, which would lead to the radically new perspective and genealogical methods of The History of Madness and The History of Sexuality. Revealing a little-known influence on Foucault’s historicist approach, Binswanger and Existential Analysis reminds us of his unparalleled ability to destabilize our conceptions of self.
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Binswanger and Existential Analysis
In the early 1950s, the young Michel Foucault took a keen interest in the method of existential analysis—Daseinsanalyse—developed by the Swiss psychiatrist Ludwig Binswanger. He gave a lecture course on this topic at the University of Lille in the spring of 1953 and wrote a detailed introduction to the 1954 French translation of Binswanger’s Dream and Existence (1930), in which he promised a forthcoming book that would “situate existential analysis within the development of contemporary reflection on man.” This book presents Foucault’s unpublished manuscript on Binswanger and existential analysis for the first time in English, offering crucial insight into his intellectual development.

Foucault carries out a systematic examination of Daseinsanalyse, contrasting it with psychiatry, psychoanalysis, and phenomenology and championing its ambition to understand mental illness. In his critique of existential analysis, Foucault began his turn toward emphasizing the primacy of experience, which would lead to the radically new perspective and genealogical methods of The History of Madness and The History of Sexuality. Revealing a little-known influence on Foucault’s historicist approach, Binswanger and Existential Analysis reminds us of his unparalleled ability to destabilize our conceptions of self.
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Binswanger and Existential Analysis

Binswanger and Existential Analysis

Binswanger and Existential Analysis

Binswanger and Existential Analysis

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Overview

In the early 1950s, the young Michel Foucault took a keen interest in the method of existential analysis—Daseinsanalyse—developed by the Swiss psychiatrist Ludwig Binswanger. He gave a lecture course on this topic at the University of Lille in the spring of 1953 and wrote a detailed introduction to the 1954 French translation of Binswanger’s Dream and Existence (1930), in which he promised a forthcoming book that would “situate existential analysis within the development of contemporary reflection on man.” This book presents Foucault’s unpublished manuscript on Binswanger and existential analysis for the first time in English, offering crucial insight into his intellectual development.

Foucault carries out a systematic examination of Daseinsanalyse, contrasting it with psychiatry, psychoanalysis, and phenomenology and championing its ambition to understand mental illness. In his critique of existential analysis, Foucault began his turn toward emphasizing the primacy of experience, which would lead to the radically new perspective and genealogical methods of The History of Madness and The History of Sexuality. Revealing a little-known influence on Foucault’s historicist approach, Binswanger and Existential Analysis reminds us of his unparalleled ability to destabilize our conceptions of self.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780231195010
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Publication date: 09/16/2025
Series: Foucault's Early Lectures and Manuscripts
Pages: 336
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Michel Foucault (1926–1984), a French philosopher, historian, and social theorist, was one of the most important figures in twentieth-century thought.

Elisabetta Basso is an associate professor at the University of Pavia and a member of the Centre d’archives en philosophie, histoire et édition des sciences at the École normale supérieure of Paris.

François Ewald is a political philosopher and historian who oversaw the publication of Foucault’s lectures at the Collège de France.

Marie Satya McDonough is a master lecturer in the College of Arts and Sciences Writing Program and the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program at Boston University.

Bernard E. Harcourt is a chaired professor at Columbia University and the École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris and has edited a range of works by Foucault in French and English.

Table of Contents

A Preface to Experience, by Bernard E. Harcourt
Foreword to the French Edition, by François Ewald
Rules for Editing the Text, by Elisabetta Basso
Translator’s Note, by Marie Satya McDonough
Introduction
Chapter 1. The Ellen West Case
Chapter 2. Space
Chapter 3. Time
Chapter 4. The Experience of the Other
Chapter 5. Existential Anthropology
Manuscript Context
The Research Projects of the 1950s: Between Philosophy and Psychology, by Elisabetta Basso
Detailed Contents
Index of Notions
Index of Names
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