Phenomenological-Hermeneutic Resources for an Ethics of Psychotherapeutic Care

This chapter introduces and discusses four concepts that seem to be relevant to develop a phenomenologically- and hermeneutically-based ethics for psychotherapeutic care: “dialogue,” “attunement,” “recognition,” and “intimacy.” Dialogue is the essential happening of language, not a mere exchange of information; in it subjectivity is displaced and something new about the interlocutors is revealed. Attunement is a modulation of the emotional field in-between myself and the other. Attunement is also the capacity to coordinate my tempo with that of the other. Attunement—inter-emotionality—inter-temporality are grounded in corporeality as a form of intercorporeality. Recognition is the epistemic and ethic capacity to acknowledge the alterity in myself and of the other person. Self-recognition is the acknowledgment of the pre-individual elements not yet appropriated by myself; other-recognition is the acknowledgment of the other person as a fellow man to whom I attribute value, life, and consciousness. Intimacy is an atmospheric experience of aloneness-togetherness, self- and other-recognition: enveloped in an atmosphere of intimacy I get in touch with myself via getting in touch with each other.