실존적 좌절을 극복하기 위한 야스퍼스의 실존철학과 철학상담

Abstract

A philosophical counseling which today began by Gerd B. Achenbach in 1981 is in line with the tradition of ancient philosophical counseling at least 2500 years ago. Therefore, the modern philosophical counseling movement is not a new interdisciplinary approach. Philosophers, now and then, as usual, take care of the human soul(mind/spirit) through a philosophical counseling as a practice of philosophy. In this sense, a philosophical counseling is a philosophical movement that treats an illness of the soul or the mind. In accordance with the tradition of ancient philosophical counseling, Jaspers advocates the extraordinary technique of philosophical counseling through interdisciplinary dialogue between philosophy and medicine. Jaspers’ existence explanation differs significantly from Freud’s psychological analysis which was created in 1896. This existential explanations to heal a mental pain focus on the real existence, not the freudian unconscious existence. Jaspers divides the situation that human beings face into a general situation and a borderline situation. A borderline situation is a situation of uncertainty, an irresistible situation and an unchangeable situation. Human beings suffer an existential frustration due to a borderline situation(pain, death, struggle, guilt, etc.) that they face. A borderline situation as an existential frustration is just an object of treatment in Jaspers’ philosophical counseling. Furthermore, Jaspers attempts to treat an existential frustration caused by a borderline situation through an existential explanation and an existential intercommunication as a method of philosophical counseling that serves as the core of his existential philosophy. A philosophical counselor plays a role in helping a client to overcome his or her borderline situation as an existential frustration by performing a practice of philosophy with a client. Thus, the ultimate goal of Jaspers’ philosophical counseling is to gain a real existence within an existence explanation and an existential mutual communication, namely self-realization. From this point of view, the purpose of this study is to discuss Jaspers’ philosophical counseling as a practice of philosophy through methods of existential explanation and existential mutual communication in the framework of interdisciplinary dialogue as an alternative to overcome an irresistible unchangeable borderline situation that the modern day people face.