Karl Jaspers. 100 years of “Allgemeine Psychopathologie” (General Psychopathology)

• Published in: Nervenarzt 2013-11, Vol.84 (11), p.1281
• Main Author: Häfner, H
• Format: Article
• Language: ger
• Subjects: Germany; History, 20th Century; History, 21st Century; Humans; Mental Disorders - history; Models, Psychological; Philosophy, Medical - history; Psychopathology - history
• ISSN: 1433-0407
• DOI: 10.1007/s00115-013-3833-5

With his "Allgemeine Psychopathologie" (general psychopathology) published in 1913, Karl Jaspers laid a comprehensive methodological and systematic foundation in psychiatry. Following Edmund Husserl, the founder of philosophical phenomenology, Jaspers introduced "static understanding" into psychopathology, i.e. the unprejudiced reproduction of conscious phenomena. From the philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey he further adopted the distinction between causal understanding as a means of accessing nature and pathological processes and hermeneutic understanding, also called genetic understanding, as a way of accessing mental phenomena. The intrusion of an event that is incomprehensible in terms of an understandable development is seen as indicating an extraconscious phenomenon or transition to a somatic process. Jaspers opted for philosophy early in his life. After quitting law studies he graduated in medicine, arrived in psychopathology without any psychiatric training, to psychology without ever studying psychology and to a chair in philosophy without a degree in philosophy. Despite believing himself to be chronically ill and to die early, Jaspers produced a life’s work almost immeasurable in scope. He died in 1969 aged 86 years.