The Phenomenology of Body and Space in Depression

The lecture describes depression in phenomenological terms, i.e. onthe basis of the distinction of ‘lived’ and ‘corporeal’ body. while thebody is normally embedded into the world and extended into space,depression interrupts this lived contact to the world and to others. localor general oppression condenses the fluid, mobile lived-body to the solid,heavy corporeal body which puts up resistance to all remaining expansiveimpulses. the depressed person is thus restricted to a ‘corporealized body’which does not give access to the world any more, but stands in the way as anobstacle. the patient’s capacity to participate in the world by his senses andfeelings is thwarted by alienation and even depersonalisation. the lectureinterprets the typical clinical symptoms of depression on the backgroundof this concept and arrives at some therapeutical conclusions.