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Dialogue between Prof. Medard Boss and Prof. Dongshick Rhee / THE FIRST INTERVIEW |
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¡Ø This verbatim record is the dialogue between the late Prof. Medard Boss and Prof. RHEE, which took place at June 12 (10:00-10:50 AM), and 15 (9:00-9:50 AM), 1976, on Zurich Zollicon, Swiss. Prof. RHEE visited Prof. Medard Boss after the attendance of the 10th International Congress of Psychotherapy held on Paris, France.
It's reprinted from Psychotherapy (ïñãêö½Öû) Vol. 6, No. 1, pp.30-43, 1992, Korean Academy of Psychotherapists, Seoul, Korea.
Dialogue between Prof. Medard Boss and Prof. Dongshick Rhee
THE FIRST INTERVIEW
(inaudible for a few seconds)
Prof. Rhee: ... and in that case, you know(Prof. Boss: You read my book, Psychoanalysis and Daseinsanalysis?), yes, I felt some common theme, Visualsierung(Visualization) of the real self. In the process of psychotherapy, your patient, a woman psychiatrist from England, she drew a picture, first, devil-like woman, after that, she drew a picture of healthy baby. In that case, I think that a kind of visualization of the real self, in Zen Buddhism, the original self.(Prof. Boss : the true self.)
Prof. Boss: Yes. That should be. That's the shining force who drew this picture and if you come closer, or if you allow self to pervade the true self, your existence too is nourished by, you become healthy, healthier.
Prof. Rhee: So I would like to know your growth as a psychotherapist, process of your growth. We could learn from your experience(Ausbildung) (Prof. Boss: my training?) not only training, but everything to become yourself, the process of your growth.
Prof. Boss: I have written it down in German. I could give you a reprint Ich habe meine Ausbildung geschrieben. Es gibt ein Buch "Psychotherapie in Selbst-darstellungen"(Psychotherapy in Self-description, therefore, my career, my deed and power.) I can give if you can remember me, I can give a reprint in German to read. But I was trained as a medical man in Zurich as well as in Paris, Vienna, Berlin and Bonn.
Prof. Rhee: So you have many different experiences.
Prof. Boss: Different experiences from many parts of the world and when I specialized in psychiatry, and was a resident for 6 years at the psychiatric clinic at Bürgholzli.
Prof. Rhee: After you studied medicine, you went to psychiatry without specializing.
Prof. Boss: No, I did surgery just a year, for about a year, and I did internal medicine also about a year and then I turned to psychiatry. The chief of psychiatric clinic at the University asked me to come as a resident. I stayed there for 6 years also in the outpatient clinic and after that I took over as a physician-in-chief in a private sanatorium for a couple of years. And at the same time I opened an analytical practice because I was trained, besides my medical studies. I was trained as an orthodox Freudian psychoanalyst. Here I was doing analysis for a year. I went to Berlin at the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute. And later I became acquainted with C.G. Jung. We became quite close, and also had workshops with him for about ten years. But it didn't satisfy me altogether. And I came to know an Indian philosopher who was studying with C.G. Jung here (Prof. Rhee: When was that?) in 1954. I took lessons in Indic, Indian language for a year and was invited to teach as a visiting professor at the University of Lucknow in India. And I went twice to India, each time for 6 months, teaching and studying and mainly I sought to get some of the wisdom of the Indian saints which enlarged my knowledge. Naturally I stayed there quite some time in Indian, Hindu monastery with the monks. I was taught to meditate. And much later on I became also acquainted with a Japanese, a Japanese Zen Buddhist Master. And just a moment, also. That was my training. And the most important thing was in 1947, I go acquainted with German philosopher Martin Heidegger. I knew him. I read through his books in 1943-1944 while I was doing military service in Switzerland during the war. And I became personally acquainted with him and we became close friends and so he came over to Zurich from Frankfurt. Each time, once or twice to give seminars for a fortnight at this house with my students.
Prof. Rhee: For what kind of students?
Prof. Boss: For psychiatrists and psychology students and some theologians. For about sixty or seventy people. We had seminars and besides this I has innumerable talks with him and I probably, I also traveled with him. I had a cottage in the mountains where I stayed with him because he could work there. Very quiet there, stayed there a couple of weeks. Other times we went to Sicily and France and so on until he became sick 6 years ago. He had the first brain stroke and he couldn't travel anymore. But now he is dead. And naturally his philosophy, his philosophical insights gave me the long sought basic foundings for the understanding of human existence, healthy and sick phenomena of human existence. And he gave about 30 seminars altogether. That means about 60 hours of seminars altogether and I collected, I made, a tape recording of these seminars, and they are not printed. ? ? ? ? ? ?, in Germany where Schüler's archives are. I believe some of these are minutes of Zollikoner seminars. But the summary, the essence of all these seminars, I have put together with the help of Heidegger himself in a book. It's called "Grundriss der Medizi und der Psychologie" and it just now appears in print in English version in America. It will come out this fall or next spring with Aronson Publishing Company. And the last book I've written in that, you may have seen in Paris, it's about dreams, dream interpretations, the title in "Es träumte mir vergangene Nacht" "What happen to the dreams last night?" because these sentences are of our patients. That's the summary.
Prof. Rhee: Is there any connection with Binswanger?
Prof. Boss: Oh, yes, certainly I had connection with. I knew him very well, was a very good friend of mine, and was fascinated by him too, but after some time I, due to my personal acquaintance with Heidegger, I came to see some mistakes in Binswanger.
Prof. Rhee: What kind of mistakes?
Prof. Boss: Heidegger himself always told me that Binswanger read too much and thought too little(laughter altogether) and too quick to apply for himself, and therefore he used the new terms of being-in-the-world but filled it with the old subjective representation of subjectivity of the human being, those of subjectivity, the subjectivity of humans who have to transcend, to overcome the things, whereas just the keystone of Heidegger's insight was that human existence is from the start was expanded, rather expanded perceiving and seeing and understanding so that there is no need to transcend.
Prof. Rhee: It's already out there.
Prof. Boss: That's the main point.
Prof. Rhee: In other words, Binswanger dichotomatized.
Prof. Boss: Yes, again he didn't get over the dichotomy which already persisted.
Prof. Rhee: Actually there is no dichotomy.
Prof. Boss: Yes, he was in the Cartesian dichotomy of Decartes. Then, I discussed the matter with Binswanger and, he had the greatness to admit that he was mistaken. And he even wrote it down and gave a paper and he has been in Barcelona where he stated that he was mistaken. He only hoped that it was a fruitful misunderstanding. And from then on he called it Husserl's phenomenology and he no longer called his papers Daseinsanalytic ones.
Prof. Rhee: What then did he call it?
Prof. Boss: He called it phenomenology. According to Husserl, Husserl tried to be phenomenologist, too. But Husserl, he again was a philosophy teacher of Heidegger, and but he didn't succeed to make his intentions true. He had to work right back to the things themselves. But he couldn't get out of the conception of consciousness and became encapsulated.
Prof. Rhee: Therefore, he was imprisoned.
Prof. Boss: Yes, therefore, Heidegger himself, he called his teacher's, Husserl's phenomenology the phenomenology of consciousness whereas his own philosophy he called it hermeneutics. He made this clear distinction between the two phenomenologies. The difference just consists in his exploding his conception of psyche or personality or person present in his consciousness, his encapsule¡¦. that's the thing.
Prof. Rhee: Then you mean Binswanger mistook the idea of phenomenology of Husserl?
Prof. Boss: Yes, he didn't make a reality step from Husserl to Heidegger.
Prof. Rhee: Then what was¡¦. I would like to know, I read some books on Buddhism. There was an introduction written by American philosopher William Barret. He said that when a friend of Heidegger visited him and he showed Japanese Suzuki, he is the master of Zen Buddhism. So he showed this book to his friend and he said, in this book, what he tried to write in his whole career is contained in this book. So did he mention about the relation between his own philosophy and Zen Buddhism or Eastern philosophy?
Prof. Boss: Yes, certainly, but when I came to know him he had no idea whatsoever of the Eastern philosophies. After my return from India naturally I talked a lot about it to Heidegger and then he became very interested because he sense that similarity or equality even¡¦. As it was my surprise that it was India saint in India that it set expressed phrases which could be verbally written in ? ? ? And later he had also a long talk once with a Japanese Zen master. Heidegger.
Prof. Rhee: Which one?
Prof. Boss: I don't know. I don't remember. He has written a short paper I don't remember the Japanese name. And he made only one big difference, one is that in Zen Buddhism and Hindu philosophy there is a difference Atman, Brahman open light
Prof. Rhee: Yes, I think¡¦.
Prof. Boss: Well, Heidegger, he only can experience that the human being is engaged by this light to serve, becomes himself a man, himself openness, life openness into which all things may shine forth. So in Heidegger's thinking he said he could only experience that in order to be something, that something is to be and exist at all human beings in existence is necessary as being engaged by the hiddenness of disclosing abundant thought and being engaged by it. And without human being beyond his.
Prof. Rhee: I think that's very important point. But when I was in Korea I told my friends, philosophers, professors of Eastern philosophy you know Tao, the difference between Eastern Tao and Western Existential philosophy is that in Eastern Tao, we are not preoccupied with ourselves, human beings. We are congruent with nature but in Heidegger's philosophy or Western Existential philosophy they are not free from human being. Can you understand? I understood in that way, but this has some relevance with the practice of psychotherapy. In my experience we have psychiatrists who were trained here in U.S. and I found they are not cured enough. Always there is self preoccupation. The goal if the Tao is to become completely free from your own self importance or preoccupation.
Prof. Boss: But this is also so far one of Heidegger's goals. In seeing human existence as being a servant of Tao that all self importance vanishes.
Prof. Rhee: I say that in Western Existential philosophy is out of the tradition, of orthodox Western tradition and it is getting closer to Eastern Tao, and I say this is a gate to enter the Tao. As Western philosophy grow further I think it will be congruent with Eastern Tao.
Prof. Boss: Yes, it's going to follow same direction along Heidegger's path but lately the path is changing in the opposite direction, the technical direction.
Prof. Rhee: That's the orthodox Western tradition.
Prof. Boss: Yes, but even as far as I've seen in India the respectable people are trying to have Westernized perception.
Prof. Rhee: Yes, because they have inferiority complexes. Japanese, Indians, Chinese, other Asians, they have inferiority complex so they degrade their own culture and try to pick up the Western things.
Prof. Boss: Yes, exactly but they shouldn't. To the contrary, they should stick to their basic tradition (Prof. Rhee: and insights), that would help Western. Because the Western people, if it goes on it, it is more operational way of thinking, (Prof. Rhee: technical, theoretical) measuring everything analytic, the whole universe as a human being so I think human beings will be lost. So therefore what East should remember is the enormous service to Western people that they will have the courage to stick to their basic knowledge of this Tao.
Prof. Rhee: Heidegger calls it hiddenness.
Prof. Boss: And this Verborgenheit that appear opens up some realm of Lichtung but it's not very fashionable.
Prof. Rhee: So what made you get interested in the field of psychiatry? When you were a medical student or after surgery?
Prof. Boss: Yes, because the surgery seemed to me much too mechanistic, too traditional in regard to the whole human being's existence. Then I have naturally big teacher Eugen Bleuler he made me much interested in psychiatry and that's whole, my luck that I had wonderful teachers, the best ones in the world, a fortune.
Prof. Rhee: But when did you have the idea to become a psychiatrist?
Prof. Boss: Well, early in my medical student years.
Prof. Rhee: Why did you study surgery and ¡¦.
Prof. Boss: Because it was, in order to become, a compulsory for an internship. Well, that's the story.
Prof. Rhee: I think it will be very helpful for us to have someone to have some Daseins-analytical training here and combine with Eastern Tao so that¡¦.
Prof. Boss: Of course, that would be wonderful but unfortunately it's a question of money. Very important factor. We are discouraged about it.
Prof. Rhee: We want to connect training with Dasein institute.
Prof. Boss: Ya. There is an analytic institute. My students here try to get institutionalized but I was against institutionalization because the Daseinsanalysis is nothing to be preached to but it is just a way to teach people to open their eyes. But then I myself became, to allow an institute to be built up. That is, what we find is two houses, two rooms where students are conducting Daseinsanalysis under supervision and where we are giving our courses, seminars spending 15 hours a week giving supervision and seminars to students of Daseinsanalysis Institute. Naturally there are some funds given to the institute which may help somewhat to relieve, for instance for some students from the East.
Prof. Rhee: You have a student from the East?
Prof. Boss: No, but that could help, but the prerequisite to bring a student from the East is he speaks German. The trouble is here in Switzerland, you have a particular dialect. If he understands good German and without knowing German, it will be just good luck to find, for instance, English speaking patient. (Prof. Rhee: money and dialect) Well, we would like to find someone with language. I don't know why¡¦. I was in Japan a year ago. Then I was invited by a foundation in Kyoto.
Prof. Rhee: I heard from one Japanese in Japan you gave a lecture at Tokyo University.
Prof. Boss: Kyoto, Nagoya. Four different lectures, two about schizophrenia and two about the relation between so called psyche and culture. They are published in Japanese language but that is different from Korean. And next year in Japan there will be a psychosomatic congress as far as I know, organized by Ikemi.
Prof. Rhee: International or ¡¦ in Kyoto?
Prof. Boss: Psychosomatic congress, international congress of psychosomatic institute. (medicine)
Prof. Rhee: Are you going to go? Are you invited?
Prof. Boss: Yes, I think so. I think I'll go if my health allows. I'll be 73.
Prof. Rhee: When? What month? In the summer?
Prof. Boss: No, in the fall.
Prof. Rhee: If you come to Japan I think you should visit Korea.
Prof. Boss: But it's still far.
Prof. Rhee: No, not far. only one and half an hour from Tokyo. I think because of foreign currency policy, we can't be sure if we can give you transportation but maybe we can pay the expenses while you are in Korea.
Prof. Boss: Korea is awfully nice, thank you, too.
Prof. Rhee: Maybe it won't cost much, maybe less than two hundred dollars from Tokyo to Seoul for a round trip.
Prof. Boss: As long as I can travel. It's not absolutely excluded. We'll get you a reprint, it's in German. It's not useful for you.
Prof. Rhee: Oh, no, I can read German. Before the end of the World War I could read German very well¡¦.
Prof. Boss: I just barely¡¦.
Prof. Rhee: What are you doing here in Zurich?
Prof. Boss: I'm taking rest and seeing you is the purpose of staying here. Nothing else.
Prof. Rhee: Oh! on the 15th, Thursday at nine O'clock? Could you come on the 15th at nine O'clock in the morning?
Prof. Boss: Sure, sure, the 15th, Thursday.
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