International workshop on “Existential Elucidation. Jaspers and Spiritual Care”

IAS-TUM Philosopher in Residence Rico Gutschmidt conducted together with his TUM host Eckhard Frick (Professorship of Spiritual Care and Psychosomatic Health) an interdisciplinary workshop on June 14–15 at the TUM university hospital. A group of international scholars (Philosophy, Psychology, Medicine, Literary Studies) interpreted Spiritual Care against the background of Jaspers’ concept of the boundary situation.

The German philosopher Karl Jaspers (1883–1968) introduced the term “boundary situation” that refers to the limits of action and life, such as struggle, guilt, suffering and death. Human life always remains within these boundaries, but this is experienced in a special way in particular situations. Patients who have to endure severe physical or emotional suffering or are confronted with their own death due to a terminal illness can experience their situation as a boundary situation in the sense of Karl Jaspers. According to Jaspers, in confronting boundary situations, people can gain “existential elucidation,” a new and transformative perspective on their lives.

At the workshop, Alice Holzhey-Kunz (Zurich), Giovanni Pietro Basile (Boston), Hilmar Schmiedl-Neuburg (Boston), Heidi Frølund Pedersen (Aarhus), Emmy van Deurzen (London), Godehard Brüntrup (Munich), An Ni (Beijing), and the two organizers discussed the question of how to support people in boundary situations from a philosophical, spiritual and psychological perspective. A central concern of the workshop was to establish ways of interrelating secular-existential and religious-spiritual forms of support. The papers of the workshop will be published in the series "Studies in Spiritual Care" by De Gruyter.