International Federation of Daseinsanalysis

The school

History

A movement began in psychiatry in the 1920s, searching for a new understanding of human existence and its disturbances. This is where it led.

  1. 1881

    Ludwig Binswanger is born

    Psychiatrist, the founder of Daseinsanalysis. He dies in 1966.

  2. 1903

    Medard Boss is born

    Swiss psychiatrist, the first representative of Daseinsanalysis as a therapeutic method. He dies in 1990.

  3. 1919

    Gion Condrau is born

    Trained in psychiatry, neurology and philosophy. He dies in 2006.

  4. 1927

    Sein und Zeit

    Heidegger’s Daseinsanalytik lays the groundwork: the world is not the totality of objects facing a subject, and is not accessible without a human being’s prior relatedness to it.

  5. 1941

    Binswanger adopts the name

    Having called his orientation “phenomenological anthropology”, he prefers Daseinsanalysis from this point on.

  6. 1942

    Grundformen und Erkenntnis menschlichen Daseins

    Binswanger’s main work, followed by studies on the language and behaviour of schizophrenics, on melancholy and on mania.

  7. 1957

    The split

    After a congress in Madrid, Boss publishes a decisive critique of Freud, Jung and Binswanger. Binswanger, feeling betrayed, turns back toward Husserl.

  8. 1959–1969

    The Zollikon Seminars

    Heidegger comes to Boss in Zollikon for study sessions with psychiatric physicians and medical students. Their opening question: what does it mean to exist?

  9. 1970

    Swiss Society for Daseinsanalysis

    Founded by Medard Boss with Gion Condrau.

  10. 1971

    The Zurich Institute

    Institute for Daseinsanalytic Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, later the Zurich Daseinsanalytic School, then the Medard Boss Foundation.

  11. 1984

    Daseinsanalyse begins to appear

    The journal that becomes the official organ of the federation. Its register runs from this year to 2008.

  12. 1984

    Swiss Professional Federation for Daseinsanalysis

    Founded in Zurich.

  13. 1990

    The federation is founded

    Condrau and the Zurich group found the International Federation of Daseinsanalysis in Zurich.

  14. 1998

    Martin Heidegger’s Impact on Psychotherapy

    Condrau’s book, published in New York and Vienna. It gives the eleventh forum its theme twenty-five years later.

  15. 2013

    Incorporation in Brussels

    The federation becomes an international non-profit association under Belgian law on 4 April, published in the Annexes to the Belgian Official Journal on 27 June.

  16. 2014

    First general assembly

    Belgium, March. The first meeting of the federation after its legal foundation, and the ratification of its board.

  17. 2015

    Ninth International Forum

    Athens, September. Theme: what does it mean to be a Daseinsanalyst.

  18. 2016

    Yearbook 2016

    Fourteen articles, 139 pages, ISSN 0-254-6221.

  19. 2023

    Eleventh International Forum

    Zurich, June. Martin Heidegger’s impact on psychotherapy, dedicated to Gion Condrau.

  20. 2023

    Yearbook 2023

    Sixteen articles in four languages.

A note on the founding date

The federation’s own materials give two dates. The account of the school states that Condrau and the Zurich group founded it in 1990; the brochure of the eleventh forum says 1991. Both refer to the informal founding in Zurich, distinct from the incorporation in Belgium in 2013. We give 1990 here, and the point is worth settling.

The account in full The forums