Al di qua della contrapposizione: coscienza e inconscio nella psicopatologia fenomenologica

One necessary consequence of the metaphor of light often used by Husserl to refer to consciousness is the play of shadows implicit in every light source. The actuality of consciousness is surrounded by a non-actual horizon with different levels of darkness, called “unconscious” by Husserl himself. This phenomenological unconscious, unreflective and always recallable, builds the foundation of the different conceptualizations present in the psychopathology inspired by Husserl. In its dialogue with psychoanalysis, phenomenological psychopathology has rejected the theoretical position which regards the unconscious as a “part” of a psychic apparatus, emphasizing instead the evidence for a unitary field of consciousness in which “adumbration” can be resumed and understood in a never-ending work of clarification. A brief examination of the classical contributions by Jaspers, Binswanger, Minkowski, and of the more recent ones by Callieri, aims at highlighting how the phenomenological investigation of the unconscious, closely tracing the contours of experience, reveals the structure of subjectivity as the original presence which comes before the theoretical separation between consciousness and unconscious. It is finally emphasized that, especially in a clinical setting, it is essential not to lose sight of that horizon of not-known that resists any rational analysis and which is the real foundation of intersubjectivity.