Hoe 'tijd' psychiatrie opnieuw betoverde

Abstract

In his dissertation ‘ On time and time-forms’, the Dutch Psychiatrist Paul Theodoor Hugenholtz ( 1903 – 1987 ) developed an anthropology and psychopathology based on time-experience. Hugenholtz’ dis- sertation builds on the work on time of anthropological and phenomenological psychiatrists: Ludwig Binswanger ( 1881 – 1966 ), eugene minkowski ( 1885 – 1972 ), Viktor emil von Gebsattel ( 1883 – 1976 ) and erwin Straus ( 1891 – 1975 ). Their anthropological psychiatric work on time should be interpreted in the context of a ‘new’ psychiatry of the early twentieth century, the rise of holistic science and a broad cultural, philosophical and scientific reappraisal of time. The time debate shows a reconsideration of psychiatry in which methodology, epistemology, values and the understanding of time mutually influenced each other between 1910 and 1939 . This type of psychiatry should be studied as a cultural phenomenon, without losing sight of the psychiatric aspirations of its practitioners. With the cultural historical perspective it can be understood as a psychiatric reflection on the relationship between time- experience and the meaning of human existence in a modern world.