Martin Buber's notion of the unconscious

• Published in: Hermeneia (Iași.) 2024-01 (32), p.25-39
• Main Author: Mândruţ, David-Augustin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Buber, Martin (1878-1965); Psychotherapy
• ISSN: 1453-9047; 2069-8291

[...]Buber's main task was to criticize the Freudian and the Jungian approaches to psychoanalysis, providing at the same time a theoretical framework rich in therapeutical and practical consequences. (Buber 1965, 71) Returning to Buber's analysis from Distance and relation, he states that if the animal lives like a fruit in its skin, man lives in a huge building onto which multiple layers are always added. [...]he has distance from the world, as Buber puts it, and here we could recall the concept of the image of the universe, which the primitive man starts to learn about from the beginning. [...]we can conclude that by virtue of this primal distance, that enables man to have a world detached from himself, the primitive can imitate the image of the universe by building his own house accordingly. [...]we could assume that after this experience of the negative sublime (the uncanniness of the universe), the human being will acknowledge his vulnerability and fragility in the face of the universe, and will start building a refuge, i.e. the house.