CASE STUDY ON DASEINSANALYTICAL TREATMENT OF SCHIZOAFFECTIVE DISORDER

In this case study I want to show the development during Daseinsanalysis of a woman suffering from a long term schizoaffective disorder. After three attempts to start and remain in therapy, and following eleven inpatient admissions to different psychiatric hospitals, it seems, that the phenomenological approach of Daseinsanalysis has helped her continue and, over time, she has been able to find a better way of coming closer to the aim which has been most requested of her until now – of becoming lively – but without it resulting in a psychiatric hospital admission. Firstly I will attempt to give an overview of my patient's history, including my first encounter with her: a public help desk for working assistance for psychiatric patients in 2001, and then, soon after, as she started Daseinsanalysis in my private practice. She discontinued the therapy on account of not being able to cope with difficult feelings arising from having fallen in love with me, her analyst. I could not respond in the way she expected me to. That was the first break in our therapeutic relationship and another one was to follow two years later, when she came closer for the second time. It was my mistake as her therapist, to interfere as her father had done. She told me during one of those sessions that this was her experience and this prompted the second break. And now, since 2013, our relationship seems strong enough to continue and to come closer together to her first aim. The core question in my case study as an example from the practice in Daseinsanalysis is: how is it possible for the therapist to find the right balance in his or her approach between abstinence, through which patients can find enough space to develop freely and the naturally occurring possibilities in every relationship, which make people and their relationships lively?