Medard Boss

Medard Boss (October 4, 1903 - December 21, 1990) was a Swiss psychoanalytic psychiatrist who developed a form of psychotherapy known as Daseinsanalysis, which was largely based on the existential-phenomenological philosophy of friend and mentor Martin Heidegger. During his medical studies he was strongly influenced by the psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler. Boss believed that modern medicine and psychology, premised on Cartesian philosophy and Newtonian physics, made incorrect assumptions about human beings and what it means to be human. He addressed an existential foundation for medicine and psychology in an eponymous text, Existential Foundations of Medicine and Psychology (1979).

Select bibliography

• Zollikon Seminars: Protocols, Conversations, Letters (Editor; Martin Heidegger author) (2001). Tr. F. Mayr. Northwestern University Press.
• Existential Foundations of Medicine and Psychology (1979). Tr. S. Conway and A. Cleaves. Northvale: Jason Aronson.
• Psychoanalysis and Daseinsanalysis (1963). Tr. L. E. Lefebre. New York: Basic Books.
• A Psychiatrist Discovers India (1965). Wolff.
• I Dreampt Last Night (1978). With Stephen Conway.
• The Analysis of Dreams (1957).