Heidegger the Psychotherapist!

The angles and facets of great philosophers are boundless, for every thinker and researcher can have their own understanding and interpretation of them in accordance with their own reflections and concerns. Heidegger was certainly one of this breed of philosopher—a philosopher par excellence. Yet it must be noted that being influenced by philosophers and the possibility of concepts opening up in various domains does not signify an understanding of the path, goal, and knowledge of their philosophy! Heidegger's philosophy is only accessible through an understanding of the two domains of phenomenology and ontology, and one must always bear in mind that the aim of all his philosophical efforts lies under the emergence and opening up of the concept of Being. To reach this goal, he traversed various paths and methods; and many philosophers after him used these methods and ways without regard to Heidegger's aim and approach. The discussion concerning the analysis of Dasein and the possibilities before it was also a path that Heidegger took in his first ontological steps toward reaching the concept of Being; otherwise, the book Being and Time—as Edmund Husserl, Heidegger's teacher and colleague, supposed—was not a work on philosophical anthropology. With this point in mind, it must therefore be said that the account we provide, although it aids in understanding parts of Being and Time and is explained entirely based on Heidegger's analysis of Dasein, is not oriented toward Heidegger's own aim and his philosophy! Just as, although many existentialist philosophers were directly and indirectly influenced by Heidegger's thoughts and benefited from them, they did not necessarily even attain an understanding of his philosophy—the most famous of them being Jean-Paul Sartre, the French existentialist writer and philosopher, upon whose views many foundations of existential psychology are based. Another point that the author claims to demonstrate in these lines is that by contemplating the concept of nothingness and death, a therapeutic path can be found for various types of anxiety and depression. Initially, for the sake of simpler understanding, it is necessary to briefly present the related concepts in this regard separately, in the account that will follow. Keywords: Dasein, Being-in-the-world, Angst, Anxiety, Death

Dasein

Dasein literally means (there-being). It is the only entity that has existence, and this is its distinguishing feature from other beings. (Ex) means out, and (sistence) means standing. That is, Dasein is an ec-static being. This ec-stasis means that Dasein is capable of standing outside itself and bringing itself to its own appearance. Heidegger has explanations regarding the choice of Dasein instead of human being, which are preliminarily necessary for entering into the discovery of the meaning of nothingness. He writes: We chose the name Dasein as that fundamental domain which is the arena of the standing of the human being as human being, in order to express with a single word both the relation of Being to the essence of the human being and the essential relation of the human being to the openness or the "there" of Being as Being. The word Dasein is neither the coining of another term in place of the word consciousness, nor the coining of a name for that which we intend to represent when speaking of consciousness; rather, (Dasein) is the name for that which is initially experienced as the site or, in other words, as the place of the truth of Being, and must then be thought according to this experience. The essence of Dasein lies in the fact that in its openness, it is Being itself that announces its presence, that conceals itself from us, that grants itself and then turns away, without this truth of Being reaching its completion in Dasein."¹ "Dasein is an entity which is always myself; its Being is always mine. This determination indicates an ontological constitution, nothing more than that…. This entity is always an I, not another"²

Being-in-the-World

Dasein is an entity that lives in the world or universe—it is an entity that has itself before it in the world. Thus, by virtue of its Being-in-the-world, Dasein is a spatial and temporal entity. Dasein is a temporality that is in the past, the present, and the future simultaneously. By virtue of the culture and tradition into which it has been thrown, Dasein is its own past and that of its people, and because it always has possibilities before it (has choice), it is always there and in the future. Knowing the world is a state based on another existential relation between the human being and the world, which is not of the type of perceptual relation between a knowing subject and a known object. Heidegger calls this fundamental and non-perceptual relation between Dasein and the world "Being-in-the-world."

Fear-Awareness

Dasein, insofar as it is a being that dwells in the world and whose Being is temporal—this temporality itself indicating that Dasein has a finite Being and that death, as the most certain possibility, always lies before it—causes this being to be fear-aware. “Fearing, as a dormant possibility of Being-in-the-world in an attuned manner (that is, timorousness), has already disclosed the world in such a way that something like the fearsome can approach from it…. That for which fear fears is the fearing being itself, namely Dasein. Only a being for whom, in its Being, this very Being is an issue can fear… Fear always reveals Dasein, in varying degrees of explicitness, as the being that is in its ‘there’…” ³ The subject of fear is nothingness, not pain, suffering, torture, or being tormented. Fear is free from entanglement with things; it is a state that renders things and the world meaningless. Fear is the cause of worry or anxiety.

Anxiety

We said that Dasein is, in a sense, (Being-in-the-world), but it must be added that Dasein is always in a situation⁴ and a state⁵ in the world and encounters the world. Dasein is constituted by its shared projects and actions with others. For its Being-in-the-world is always with things and others, and at every moment it understands its Being under the heading of (Being-with). Therefore, my situation is, in a more precise sense, our situation. Heidegger, in Being and Time, uses a term called (Befindlichkeit), which Macquarrie and Robinson translate as (state of mind) in the English translation of Being and Time, and Hubert Dreyfus renders as (Affectedness) in his book Being-in-the-World.⁶ Following Dreyfus, I translate it as affectedness or susceptibility, by which is meant that Dasein is in a state of being affected by the world and the others who are in the world with it, and the state in which it finds itself has no active aspect. It is not Dasein that chooses the states that are imposed upon it. I do not choose to be sad; rather, sadness comes upon me. Dasein’s understanding of Being in a world where there are things and others that cause situations, affectations, states—among which is timorousness—makes Dasein anxious. Heidegger calls this attention (Betroffenheit) or anxiety. But in his view, this is not an existential state of Being. I am concerned and anxious, and because I am concerned or worried, I also take care of it. That is why Heidegger says that what draws Dasein to scrutinize its own situation is (Sorge), or its own perpetual concern for itself and the world. Through concern, Dasein becomes aware of its potentiality-for-Being.⁷

Death

Heidegger introduces the discussion of death at the beginning of sections 46 to 53. Heidegger considers death an unlived experience that has not yet been attained by Dasein, and the certainty of its occurrence is derived solely from observing the death of others. However, witnessing the death of another does not give us an authentic understanding of death; rather, as mentioned, it only assures us that we too will die. Yet even in this, we always confine the thought of death to the other or to something belonging to the future—a future that is not yet near to us. But as long as Dasein is, it is unfinished, and as soon as it finishes and dies, its life is posited as a totality, but it itself is no longer present.⁸ Dasein is always a (not-yet).⁹ Dasein is a being that strides toward the end of being. Death ends Dasein's time, and is the end of projections and plans. Death ends everything for Dasein. Death transforms life as it is truly lived into the narrated life of the dead Dasein. ¹⁰ But this ending does not mean completion; death is not the perfection of Dasein but the expression of its incompleteness and imperfection. When it dies, many of its potentialities have still not emerged. Death is the ultimate possibility that destroys Dasein's other possibilities. It is the possibility of the impossibility of Dasein's possibilities. Death is (henceforth no-longer-being-there).¹¹ But each person's death belongs only to them. I die alone. No one can die in my place. And it is for this reason that the death of another cannot give me an experience of death; as long as I am, death is not, and when death comes, I am no longer. Therefore, the experience of death and its understanding is always impossible for Dasein.

Dasein's being-in-the-world is accompanied by anxiety, fearfulness, and confrontation with death.

دازاین به محض اینکه به این جهان پرتاب میشود، که در پرتاب شدگی اش هیچ اختیار و خواستی وجود ندارد، در ابتدای امر خود را موجودی کم توان و نیازمند درمیابد. عدم توانایی در حفظ و مراقبت، رفع نیازات سبب آن میشود که کودک انسانی وابستگی ویژه ای به والدین خود، خصوصاً مادر داشته باشد؛ شاید بتوان گفت که کودک انسانی در همان آغاز به دلیل ترس از مرگی که در اثر نبود و یا عدم توجه کافی والدین میتواند رخ بدهد با پدیده ی مرگ آشنا میشود، به همین جهت حس نبود والدین و خود را تنها دیدن در این جهان برای او سبب پیدایش اضطرابی میشود که روانشناسان از آن تحت عنوان اضطراب جدایی یا Separation Anxiety یاد میکنند که شکل به هنجار آن بین نه تا هجده ماهگی به اوج میرسد و حدود دو و نیم سالگی کاهش میابد. کودک انسانی که هنوز فرقی ما بین نبودن و نیستی قائل نیست، در صورت نبود فردی که به او وابسته شده است، نبود فرد را فرض بر نیستی و نابودی او و تنها شدگی خود میگذارد و از همین جهت دچار این اضطراب میشود. گونه های دیگر و ضعیف تر این نوع اضطراب را میتوان در روز اولی که کودکان وارد پیش دبستانی ها میشوند مشاهده کرد. نگرانی ممکن است به صورت امتناع از رفتن به مدرسه، ترس و ناراحتی به هنگام جدایی، شکایات مکرر از علائم جنسی نظیر سردرد و دل درد به هنگام پیش بینی جدایی و کابوسهای مرتبط با موضوعات جدایی ظاهر شوند.¹² شکل دیگر اضطراب را ما تحت عنوان فوبیای اجتماعی یا Social phobia میشناسیم که این نوع اضطراب از اواخر دوران کودکی شروع میشود. این افراد در مواجهه با دیگران احساس شرمندگی میکنند، نگران هستند که دستها و صدایشان نلرزد و سرخ نشود. معمولاً از صحبت کردن و غذا خوردن در حضور جمع، ابراز وجود کردن، انتقاد کردن و بالاخره اظهار نظر کردن میترسند. فردی که دچار اضطراب اجتماعی است هیچ گونه تمایلی به آغاز ارتباط با دیگران ندارد و با احساسی از ترس از هر موقعیتی که ممکن است در معرض داوری دیگران قرار گیرد، اجتناب می‌ورزد. برداشت یا تصور شخص از موقعیت‌های اجتماعی که احتمال دارد شخصیت، ظاهر یا توانایی‌های او مورد سنجش و ارزشیابی ضعیف دیگران قرار گیرد، می‌تواند واقعی یا خیالی باشد. مبتلایان به اضطراب اجتماعی از اینکه چگونه در نظر دیگران به نظر می‌رسند احساس نگرانی می‌کنند. آنها معمولاً در جمع متوجه به ظاهر و رفتار خود هستند و معیارهای بالایی برای رفتار و عملکرد خود در نظر دارند. شخص مبتلا تلاش می‌کند تا تأثیر مثبتی بر دیگران بگذارد و جلوه عادی از خود ارائه دهد اما در عین حال معتقد است که قادر به این کار نیست. ¹³ این نوع اضطراب ناشی از ترس از قضاوت دیگری است که بنیاد در نبود عزت نفس و اعتماد به نفس دارد، یعنی فرد چون خود را خالی و پوچ میبیند و میشناسد دچار این عارضه میشود. نوع دیگر اضطراب همان است که ما از آن تحت عنوان هراس ساده یا Phobia simple یاد میکنید که نوعی هراس غیر منطقی است که طی آن فرد از مواجهه با بعضی اشیاء، حیوانات، طوفان، بلندی، عمل جراحی، خون و امثالهم میترسد. این نوع اضطراب نیز در بنیاد خود ریشه در ترس از مرگ و نابودی دارد. نوع دیگر اضطراب را ما تحت عنوان هراس از مکانهای باز یا Agro phobia میشناسیم، افراد مبتلا به این اختلال وارد شدن از وارد شدن به فضاهای ناآشنا هراس دارند، بنابراین از مسافرت و مکانهایی که ازدحام جمعیت در آن وجود دارد در هراس هستند. ریشه ی این اختلال نیز به نظر میرسد که ناشی از همان ترس از مرگ میباشد، چرا که بنا به مطالعات افرادی که دچار این عارضه میشوند در کودکی دچار اضطراب جدایی نیز بوده اند. این نوع ترس معمولاً با افکار مضطرب کننده نظیر گم شدن، از دست دادن کنترل، غش کردن همراه است در DSM5 این نوع اختلال را در زیر مجموعه ی اختلال وحشت زدکی تعریف میکنند. شکل دیگر اضطراب را میتوان Panic Disorder یا اختلال هراس دانست. افرادی که دچار این اختلال هستند قالباً در مدت چند ثانیه تا چند ساعت حمله ای به ایشان دست میدهد که دچار طپش قلب شدید، همراه با ترس از دیوانه شدن یا ترس از مرگ است.

فرم دیگر اضطراب که تحت عنوان GAD یا  Generalized Anxiety Disorder یا اختلال اضطراب فراگیر است ترکیبی از علائم زیر را با خود دارد طپش قلب، تنگى نفس، اسهال، بی‌اشتهایى، سستى، سرگیجه، تعریق، بی‌خوابى، تکرر ادرار، لرزش، فقدان آرامش، مرطوب بودن کف دست، احساس گرفتگى گلو، نگرانى نسبت به آینده، گوش به زنگ بودن نسبت به محیط. در اضطراب فراگیر خطر واقعى وجود ندارد.

Finally, we also have two forms of obsession that can be placed under the category of anxiety—of course, one could more precisely name other anxieties, but in the author's view, all of them can be subsumed under those we have already mentioned—one of which is Obsessive-compulsive Disorder, which consists of involuntary, repetitive, and irrational thoughts or actions that the individual repeats against their will. This illness can manifest as obsessive thoughts, compulsive actions, or a combination of both; and the other is post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, or more precisely Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, which is usually accompanied by a severe emotional stress whose intensity can be damaging to anyone, such as war, natural disasters or calamities like earthquakes, being attacked or raped, and severe accidents.

If we wish to explain all forms of anxiety in Heideggerian language, we must say the following: Dasein, which is a being that has its being-in-the-world with an Other with whom it shares and partakes, possesses an understanding of its own Being as a temporal and finite entity whose Being is a being-toward-death. Dasein is a being that, through understanding its own mortality and finitude, sees possibilities laid out before it. The temporal aspect of its Being reveals two faces to it. One is the dread of death and annihilation, which causes despair, hopelessness, and anxiety (thus the primary source of anxiety is the fear of death), and this is inauthentic because it fails to notice the richness latent in this concept. For here the individual does not realize that death is a situation that makes an authentic and genuine life possible. Because here, by repudiating the thought of death, the individual firstly deprives himself of the possibility of understanding Being and entangles himself with entities and everydayness, dwelling, as Heidegger says, in the forgetfulness of Being. And secondly, he loses the limitation on the possibility of benefiting from his potentialities and possibilities as a being. This is while the other face of understanding death, which arises from an authentic thinking that has accepted death as the most certain possibility ahead, firstly finds the possibility of thinking about Being, and even realizes that it is in finitude that one can view life as a situation that is presently at hand and therefore valuable. And how well Freud wrote that when we repudiate death, when we lose our attention to mortal dangers, life becomes impoverished and insipid. It is, in fact, death that gives our life authentic meaning. And Tolstoy, that incomparable writer, in the novel War and Peace when depicting the life of Pierre, or in the story The Death of Ivan Ilyich, shows how, during the days of the illness that will soon carry him to his death, he perceives a change in his outlook on life, beautifully portraying the place of death in a better understanding of life. How well Montaigne said: "Why do you fear the last day of your life? It contributes no more to your death than any of the others. The last step does not cause weariness, it merely reveals it." ¹³ Therefore, if we assume death to be an inseparable part of life and constantly think about it – just as Imam Sajjad had a ring on whose gem was inscribed (al-Mawt) so that he might see it every time during the Qunut of his prayer and remember that death is the most certain possibility ahead – it is this thinking about death that also gives meaning to life. But this specific connection between death and life can also be traced in the examination and investigation of the drive (Trieb). The origin of any drive is the existence of a series of tensions and stimuli in the organism. The drive is an activity to reduce or eliminate tension. Thus, the aim of a drive activity is the elimination of tension, while the factor of repetition causes its increase. If we consider the general aim of the drive to be the preservation of life, then the factor of repetition is its contradiction and opposite. For example, with a drive like scratching a part of the body, if there is no limit to the factor of repetition, the erotogenic zone is damaged. "The contradiction inherent in the drive, that is, the contradiction between the drive as a life-preserving process and the drive as a force that leads to exhaustion, is fundamental and indicates the fusion of the life force and the death force in the human being... According to Freud's theory, the search for pleasure is itself in contradiction with its fundamental principle, namely the preservation of life and constant activity. The elimination of the source of tension and its descent into a state of pure rest would be nothing other than its death." Thus, death and life are not in opposition to one another but are in complete accord and solidarity. The fusion of the driving force of death and life contains this point: that the essence of the human being is, in fact, a tragic nature. We must also answer two questions: first, how many faces does our desire for immortality – since it became clear that all anxiety is rooted in the fear of death – have, and second, what exactly do we fear in the fear of death? The human being, who knows that he dies, considers survival and immortality for himself in three forms. The first is survival through progeny, by which is meant survival through blood, which is the endless chain of biological bonds. The second is survival in memories, or survival through works, by which is meant remaining in the memory of loved ones and friends, or through living on in the creative works and influences left for others. And the third is survival of the soul itself, by which is meant the form that religions depict, influenced by Plato's Phaedo and Aristotle's On the Soul, under the title of the survival of the soul, which is also called theological immortality.

It should be noted that these same three forms of the will to immortality themselves cause anxiety in some individuals. The first form, for those who are unable to have children—the positive aspect of this will being, of course, that humans reproduce and preserve their lineage—the second form, for those who devote all their effort and concern to doing something that will remain in memories, this pressure and stress from work, or keeping everyone satisfied so as to remain well in their memories, causes anxiety in the individual—the other side of this will being that it leads to production, progress, and the employment of the creative faculty—and likewise, the notion of the survival of the soul has both aspects: first, the individual suffers from fear of death due to the punishment common in Semitic religions, which itself causes death anxiety; and its positive aspect, which, based on the immortality of the soul after death, makes one happy with the belief that death is not one's end and annihilation. In fact, the MMPI, or Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, which is a type of personality test for diagnosing depression and anxiety, shows that religious individuals who believe in the survival of the soul have less death anxiety than others. But the fear of death manifests itself in various ways. Irvin Yalom, in his book Existential Psychotherapy, identifies seven different types: 1- My death will cause sorrow and grief for my relatives and friends. 2- All my plans and projects will come to an end. 3- The process of dying may be painful. 4- I will no longer be able to experience anything. 5- I will no longer be able to care for my dependents. 6- I fear what will happen to me if there is an afterlife. 7- I fear what will happen to my body after I die¹⁵ Therefore, if we have a more serious understanding of our mode of being in the world, which is life, and also perceive death not as an ending but as a possibility, it seems we will no longer fear it and will have overcome the problem of anxiety and depression arising from it. The fear of death, of course, does not only have negative consequences; Freud says that the first human societies were formed because of the fear of death. Early humans gathered together and drew close to one another out of fear of separation and what lurked in the darkness, which itself brings forth being-with-others in the world in a deeper way—an other whose absence, as Freud says, causes terror, but whose presence itself also causes anxiety, an anxiety that can stem from the responsibility we have towards them—and it was for this reason that Sartre said hell is other people—and many other cases, only a few of which we have mentioned in this writing. In the end, it is fitting to bring up the image that Monty, in a mythical dialogue between Chiron and Saturn, the god of time and lingering, depicts the relationship between death and life, to show that a proper understanding of death itself gives meaning to life. "Imagine how much harder and more painful enduring eternal life would be for a human than the life I have prepared for him. If you did not have death, you would constantly curse me for having withheld it from you. I have deliberately added a little bitterness to it so that, seeing the comfort it provides you, you do not embrace it greedily and voraciously. I have blended both death and life with sweetness and bitterness to settle you in the middle state that I desire for you: neither fleeing from life nor fleeing from death to life." ¹⁵

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 1- What is Metaphysics?, Introduction, p. 143, by Martin Heidegger, translated by Siavash Jamadi

2- Being and Time, §114, by Martin Heidegger, translated by Abdolkarim Rashidian

3- Being and Time, §141, by Martin Heidegger, translated by Abdolkarim Rashidian

Situation4-

stimmung, mood, tuning5- Being –in-the-world,H.L.Dreyfus,P1686-

6- Being and Time, §401-402 7-

P.N: In English, the static equivalent of the word Sorge is the word care. But the English word only possesses one aspect of the German word's meaning, which conveys the sense of looking after. However, its other aspect is concernfulness. It is because we are concerned about something that we take care of it. Our authentic human condition is this very concern and anxiety; as long as we are alive and as long as a human being breathes, this characteristic is with them. Regarding this concept, Iraj Ghanooni has provided a detailed explanation in a footnote on page 228 of his translation of volume one of Nietzsche. 8- Being and Time, 281 9- Being and Time, 286-289 10- Heidegger and the Fundamental Question, Babak Ahmadi, p. 490 11- Ibid., p. 493 12- Kaplan and Sadock's Synopsis of Psychiatry, Tenth Edition, p. 503 13- From Epistemology to Brain Function, Thomas Furmark

14- Montaigne, Complete Essays, About Death, p67

15- Irvin Yalom, Existential Psychotherapy, translated by Sepideh Habib, p. 73

16- Montaigne, Complete Essays, About Death, p67

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Heidegger the Psychotherapist!

Author: Iman Motlagh

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