Water, Mood and Care

Article

Abstract

[In English]

The article Water, Mood and Care is an excerpt from a book I have recently completed titled: The Gypsy Blues: Musings on Darkness, Rest and Creativity. The following section reflects on the ancient pagan correspondence between water and emotion and tries to show that only an existential conception of human emotion can make sense of this correspondence. I establish this by examining Martin Heidegger’s conception of mood (Befindlichkeit) as discussed in Being and Time and by contrasting it with the understanding and approach to moods implicit in contemporary psychiatric culture. I also contrast the Daseinsanalytic approach to moods with the currently popular, cognitive behavioral therapy, in order to show the limitations of the latter and the richness and depth of the former, both from a philosophical point of view, as well as from the point of view of effective psychotherapy.