Being-towards-death and Its Relevance to Psychotherapy

Abstract

This paper focuses on Heidegger’s distinction in Being and Time between Being-ahead-of-itself and Being-a-whole, in order to show how this informs psychotherapeutic work with clients. These terms in turn relate to Heidegger’s explication of an inauthentic relation to death, on the one hand, and an authentic stance of Being-towards-death, on the other. Three possible ways in which our stance towards Being-towards-death is relevant to therapeutic work are highlighted, all based on a transition from an everyday sense of experiencing life, to a more open and intense experience of living founded upon the recognition of one’s life as a whole or totality.