A Different Existence: Principles of Phenomenological Psychopathology

"Through the presentation of the behavior of a single case, van den Berg elaborates the major forms of experiencing, including one's physical world, one's body, one's social world, and time perspective of past and future. Before elaborating how these notions can be dealt with within an existential orientation, he discusses their traditional conception in pathology under the rubrics of projection, conversion, transference, and mythicizing. In a final chapter, he provides an integrating framework in discussing pathology as the experience of loneliness. Not the least of the rewards in this book is the author's concluding section providing an historical summary of phenomenological psychopathology. Seminal works and ideas of such major figures as Dilthey, Jaspers, Binswanger, Straus, Boss, and Sartre, as well as less-known contributors, are given a brief but judicious presentation. We can be grateful to the author . . . for this felicitous entree into an important avenue for understanding the abnormal personality." Contemporary Psychology