Das Daseinsanalytische Institut freut sich, Francesca Brencio im kommenden Wintersemester in Wien im Rahmen der Medard Boss Dozentur begrüßen zu dürfen.
Phenomenology is enjoying a renewed presence in psychiatry. This revival is driven by a growing recognition that the dominant neuroscientific model, built on reification, reductionism and the isolation of the patient from their world, cannot account for the lived reality of mental health conditions. Yet a dilemma persists: the limits of this paradigm are widely acknowledged, but clinical practice remains largely bound to it. This lecture asks what phenomenology can realistically offer, and what it has so far failed to deliver.
The lecture begins with the promise of phenomenology. It can shift attention from "things" located in the brain to variations of subjective and intersubjective structures, and it places the person, rather than the symptom, at the centre of care. The lecture then turns to its limits, which are twofold. Epistemologically, phenomenology has often operated within Kraepelinian diagnostic categories, reducing it to a supplementary layer of the very system it sought to challenge.
Politically, as Franco Basaglia came to recognise, it has remained largely trapped in an individualistic and at times disembodied framework, one that has left, and still leaves, the power relations embedded in psychiatric practice untouched.
In response, the lecture proposes a dialectical model of phenomenology, in which the space between, or betweenness, offers a way beyond both Cartesian dualism and the false choice between neurobiological reductionism and phenomenological idealism. It is also where the political dimension of clinical practice comes into view. The encounter between clinician and patient is never neutral ground, because diagnosis is also shaped by social values that may influence which human differences become medicalised. Attending to the space between therefore means recognising the clinical encounter as a site where norms of conformity can be either reproduced or called into question.
Vortrag
19. November 2026 | 18:30-20:00 Uhr
NIG - Neues Institutsgebäude
Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Wien • Hörsaal 3D
Eintritt frei • Anmeldung nicht erforderlich
Workshop
20. November 2026 | 09:00-13:00 Uhr
NIG - Neues Institutsgebäude
Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Wien • Hörsaal 3D
Kostenlos • Anmeldung: info@daseinsanalyse.at
Im Workshop werden die Themen des Vortrags
vertieft und gemeinsam diskutiert.
Die Medard Boss Dozentur des Österreichischen Daseinsanalytischen Instituts holt internationale Expertinnen und Experten aus den Bereichen phänomenologischer Philosophie, Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie sowie damit verwandten Gebieten nach Wien. Sie ist eine Plattform und ein Gesprächsraum für die Traditionen und neuen Entwicklungen in diesem interdisziplinären Begegnungsfeld, das in der Gegenwart zunehmend an Bedeutung gewinnt. Die Dozentur ist wird in Zusammenarbeit mit universitären Einrichtungen veranstaltet, derzeit mit dem Philosophischen Institut der Universität Wien.
Darunter waren bisher:
Peter Trawny: „Weltanschauung bei Heidegger. Zum Verhältnis von Philosophie und Nationalsozialismus“
Michael Huppertz: „Kann man das Leben üben? – Achtsamkeit zwischen Übungspraxis und Lebensgestaltung”
Holger Zaborowski: „Über Tod und Sterblichkeit“