Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of the book. The book expresses phenomenology as a particular philosophical discipline and describes the work of the major actors in the field and how they interact with each other. It explores the notion that interdisciplinary discourse both opens up possibilities in the therapeutic encounter but also imposes healthy constraints on what can be thought or theorized about psychoanalytically. The book explains the psychoanalytic encounter care and the centrality of relief of pain and suffering in its practice. This concept dates back to ancient Greece and the iatroi, healers, drawn from a range of different disciplines. It also explores the wider phenomenological implications and in particular, the relationship between unconsciousness and psychopathology. The book addresses the aspects of, for lack of a better term, the landscape of the therapeutic situation, the nature of the workspace in which the patients conduct the therapeutic relationship.