„Sammlung“ als psychotherapeutische Propädeutik und therapeutische Grundhaltung

Phenomenological seeing and hearing is not a straightforward registration of sensory data, but rather an open awareness and embodied perception of the meaningful phenomena that show themselves. Within the analytical-therapeutic process, this kind of listening enables people to find their own possibilities of being-in-the-world and thus helps them to lead a more self-determined and freer life.

Initially and for the most part, however, we (therapists and clients) are more distracted than present in the countless diversions of everyday life, and it takes a certain amount of effort to pause and recollect ourselves from these entanglements and come back to ourselves. Therefore, the Vienna School of Daseinsanalysis places particular emphasis on recollection in therapeutic practice. Primarily, recollection is not a therapeutic technique nor a theoretical model, but a basic human attitude, a time and again forgotten way of being present into which we can call ourselves back. It can therefore not be taught or learnt by simply imparting cognitive knowledge but must be experienced through repeated practice. In this sense, recollection can serve as propaedeutics for all schools of psychotherapy, as a initiatory exercise that focuses on the Being of man in his entirety.

Being recollected: a shared becoming awake in silent listening and talking to each other, an awareness of existence in its ominous limitations but also in its open possibilities—therein lies a healing power.