| This thesis is an explication and application of psychiatrist Erwin W. Straus' phenomenological psychology. My approach to his work is akin to New Historical approaches to literature. I present Straus as one dialogue in a sea of dialogues about topics such as anxiety, phobias, schizophrenia, and positive psychological states like enlightenment. In the first chapter of this thesis, I explain Straus' early work, Event and Experience, focusing on key words like subjective readiness and key concepts like the life history as a series.;In Chapter II, I turn to the concept of New Historicism and argue that a New Historical approach to psychotherapy and a person's life history could be enriching. I end that chapter with a New Historic and Strausian phenomenology of the life history of Tolstoy's Ivan Ilyich.;In Chapter III, I explore personality traits of anxious people, which Straus discusses in Event and Experience. Following that, I present the story of the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, as an example of someone who experiences anxiety, and then actualizes his life in such a way to experience a state of enlightenment.;Finally, in Chapter IV, I explain one of Straus' later works on hallucinations and schizophrenia called "The Phenomenology of Hallucinations." After explaining Straus' ideas, which include the two new concepts of the allon and the norm, I turn to Blankenburg, Minkowski, and Kimura, three famous phenomenologist who concentrate on schizophrenia. My purpose is to continue the New historic ideal of allowing all four thinkers to dialogue in multiplicity on the same topic, as opposed to compete for the dominant model. The chapter and thesis concludes with an application of Straus, Blankenburg, Minkowski, and Kimura to the life history of Elyn Saks, auto-biographer and lawyer who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia. |
