Ludwig Binswanger's Daseinsanalyse at the first "Symposium" on Clinical Psychology in Milan (1952)

Through the analysis of Ludwig Binswanger’s conference on Daseinsanalyse “in psychiatry” and of the short report on Daseinsanalyse “as science” by the Italian psychiatrist Silvio Brambilla, this paper aims to highlight the salient features of the first “Symposium” on Clinical Psychology held in Milan in 1952, the main theme of which was the role of psychology in psychiatric practice. On this basis, it will be possible to shed light on the relevance of phenomenological psychiatry in the Italian context of the mid-20th century, on the role that Binswanger’s Daseinsanalyse could have in psychiatry as such and on the preference accorded by Gemelli to non-psychoanalytic psychotherapies, such as that of Binswanger.