What is the Role of Philosophy in Psychiatry, Thomas Fuchs?

The University Clinic of Heidelberg has a long tradition of philosophers working in psychiatry. In this interview Professor Thomas Fuchs, the head of the research unit “Phenomenological psychiatry and psychotherapy”, explains how phenomenological research is carried out in a psychiatric hospital and how his philosophical commitments are present in his interaction with patients. The interview illuminates some main features of his thought concerning embodiment, affectivity and the unconscious. Fuchs understands emotions as relational, bodily and spatial phenomena, and he argues that the unconscious is not some hidden chamber in the depth of our psyche but experienced by our bodies.