Karl Jaspers : Tasks and limitations of psychotherapy

• Published in: Nervenarzt Vol. 83; no. 1; p. 84
• Main Authors: Schlimme, J E, Paprotny, T, Brückner, B
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: German
• Published: Germany 01.01.2012
• Subjects: Humans; Mental Disorders - psychology; Mental Disorders - therapy; Psychotherapy - methods; Psychotherapy - trends
• ISSN: 1433-0407
• DOI: 10.1007/s00115-011-3365-9

Using Jaspers' methodically critical attitude (methodenkritische Einstellung) we distinguish three aspects of his understanding of psychotherapy: (1) psychotherapy gains scientific quality via methodical strictness (and is therefore independent of a therapist's weltanschauung); (2) psychotherapy is a (more or less) 'hermeneutical' method of self-enlightenment, offering limited statements with respect to one's life conduct; and (3) psychotherapy oversteps its epistemological limits if gaining the status of a weltanschauung, instead of leading to (existential) philosophizing in the face of transcendence. Following Jaspers we try to answer the question: What are the limits of psychotherapeutic methods with respect to questions of life conduct? The most important limit is the unbreakable linkage between the style of one's life conduct and the (personally) experienceable (superpersonal) sense of life, which cannot be disrupted with the means of any justifiable belief or falsifiable knowledge. Quite to the contrary, this existential linkage is the starting point of many psychotherapeutic interventions.