Gelassenheit: A New Approach to Therapy and Life

An Interview with Elena Denker conducted by Rafi Miętkiewicz

Rafi: Hi, Elena. A very warm official welcome to you. On behalf of Daseinanalysis Beyond Institutions – it is a true pleasure to have you here with us today. I am very much interested in your unique path to Heidegger, Daseinanalysis and existential therapies, and how it informs your identity as a therapist. Could you share a little bit of that journey with us?

Rafi: I happen to know him well, yes.

Elena Denker: Back then, I was living in Spain and ended up studying philosophy there for a year, which I absolutely loved. But at the same time, I knew deep down that I wanted to be a practicing therapist. Because it was structurally quite difficult to study psychology in Spain at the time, I stopped after my first year and moved to the Netherlands to begin my psychological training.

My enrollment coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic, which was exactly when all the specialized online seminars started popping up. There was a roundtable seminar featuring many experienced therapists, and my dad thought it would be highly interesting for me to attend. I started attending those sessions regularly, and that is precisely how I found my way to Heidegger.

1. Islands of Understanding: From Sartre to Heidegger

Rafi: Fascinating. And who was your favorite philosopher back during your high school years?

Elena Denker: In high school, it was definitely Sartre.

Interviewer: Sartre, interesting… tell me more.

Elena Denker: Yeah. Though looking back now, I’m not entirely sure why I latched onto him so intensely. I read a few of his books, and I think what I appreciated most was his heavy emphasis on radical freedom, the idea of choosing your own path and actively forging your own meaning in life.

Rafi: Those are quite demanding books to tackle at that age—Sartre and existential philosophy are no light reading.

Elena Denker: Yes, I tried my best! I certainly didn’t understand everything on the first pass. I realized later, when I formally began studying philosophy at a university level, that structured study is where you truly learn to navigate the specialized vocabulary of philosophy. We lacked that rigorous conceptual baseline in high school because our classes mainly focused on reading secondary texts or engaging in casual classroom debates. I thoroughly enjoyed those debates, but grappling with the primary texts directly was definitely not always easy.

Rafi: What would you advise young people or those completely new to philosophy when they first start reading these dense texts? Were you already building a personal dictionary or glossary for yourself back then?

Elena Denker: I think my primary advice would be to entirely let go of the rigid expectation to understand absolutely everything right away. It is a process that requires an immense amount of time. I struggle very much with Heidegger myself. What has helped me is simply committing to pushing through the reading anyway, without demanding immediate clarity, and—whenever possible—discussing the ideas with the people around you. Of course, I realize I am in a luxury position because I have a strong network of people in my immediate circle who are deeply immersed in philosophy. That built-in community has helped me tremendously.

Rafi: You say you are in a luxury position, but you are also actively engaged and making wonderful use of it.

Elena Denker: Yes, I try to be. A close friend of mine who studied philosophy also noted that even when a text feels incredibly hard to logically parse, you still gradually develop a distinct feeling or intuition for what you are reading. I experience it the exact same way. You absorb an overall impression of what is being articulated, which is especially true when reading Heidegger. That intuitive impression is still incredibly valuable in helping you eventually understand the whole picture.

Rafi: Another prominent analyst – Medard Boss – once beautifully noted that when he read Being and Time, he felt as though he was slowly building small islands of solid islands of understanding in a vast, diverse ocean of non-understanding.

Elena Denker: Yeah, I think that is an exceptionally good summary of the experience.

2. The Medical Model vs. Lived Experience

Rafi: So, did your trajectory take you from Sartre directly to Heidegger and clinical practice, or were there other philosophical stops along the way?

Elena Denker: Not many other stops, honestly. During my later years in high school and university, I was focused more broadly on studying different traditions, such as the philosophy of science, metaphysics, or ethics.

Rafi: For our readers who might be unfamiliar, how would you describe metaphysics in plain terms?

Elena Denker: I’m not entirely sure I can! I remember when I was 18, I thought I grasped certain parts of it. I used to compile these little personal notes for myself—kind of like a custom guide to mapping out the field and its most prominent historical schools of thought. Alfred has also explained it to me multiple times over the last few years, but I still wouldn’t feel confident trying to formally answer your question. The term metaphysics was used for the first time by the editor of Aristotle´s work Andronicus of Rhodes. He ordered the books (essentially lecture courses) of Aristotle thematically: logic, ethics, poetics, politics, and physics. When he had done that, he was still left with some books he could not find a place for in his “system”. So, he decided to order them after the books on physics (philosophy of nature). After in Greek is “meta,” and so the term metaphysics came into being. In those books Aristotle discussed what he called first philosophy dealing with the ontological structure of the world and theology which deals with the unmoved mover. In scholasticism in the Middle Ages the first philosophy became general metaphysics and the topics of God, the world, and the soul became the metaphysica specialis – this structure is still in play in Kant.

Rafi: Fair enough. And what have been your focus on last years? 

Elena Denker: Yeah. Over the past few years, my philosophical focus has been almost exclusively dedicated to the concept of Gelassenheit (releasement/letting-be).

Rafi: Gelassenheit. Yes. And how do you define Gelassenheit in a clinical context?

Elena Denker: I would say Gelassenheit is a fundamental attitude toward both life and the therapeutic encounter.

Rafi: A mindset, or perhaps a heart-set?

Elena Denker: Yes, exactly. I would describe it as a posture of holding back, while remaining profoundly open. I think that is the single best word to capture it: being completely open.

Rafi: And you are actively practicing it and psychology now, correct?

Elena Denker: Yes, I have finished my formal studies in psychology and have been working full-time as a therapist for about three years now.

Rafi: Three years already? Okay.

Elena Denker: Yeah. I graduated in 2023 and initially spent time working clinically with children and young adults before transitioning into my current work with adults.

Rafi: How do you navigate combining these two vastly different worlds of philosophy and psychology? Do they get along well in practice, or do you run into sharp contradictions?

Elena Denker: I find that there are immense structural contradictions, but ironically, the philosophical world helps me cope with the limitations of the psychological world. This is a massive, ongoing theme in my life right now; it can be incredibly difficult to bridge these two completely different paradigms. A part of me wishes I could inhabit the philosophy world all the time, but reality doesn’t allow for that—especially within the clinical landscape here in the Netherlands.

Rafi: Is that primarily due to the regulatory and legal system?

Elena Denker: Yes, absolutely. In the Netherlands, institutional psychology is heavily dictated by standardized protocols and a rigid medical model.

Rafi: Like manualized Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and heavily quantified data.

Elena Denker: Exactly. When you operate as a therapist within the standard system here, you are predominantly expected to utilize CBT, EMDR, and schema therapy. While those modalities can certainly be helpful for certain issues, I frequently find myself deeply missing the richer philosophical dimensions of human existence. Because of that, I actively strive to stay engaged with philosophy outside of my job and weave it into my clinical work wherever I can safely do so.

3. Institutional Hurdles to Independence

Rafi: Tell me, are you legally obliged to use these manualized CBT methods, or is there an established, alternative avenue for an existential approach in the Netherlands?

Elena Denker: There is virtually no structural space for an existential approach in the mainstream Dutch system. There is no established clinic or institutional office where I could readily apply an existential framework, so in my current employment, I am structurally obliged to follow the standard protocols.

The only viable way to escape that systemic obligation would be to establish my own private practice, which is my ultimate goal. However, setting up an independent practice in the Netherlands is exceptionally difficult. I could legally start a private practice tomorrow, but I wouldn’t be able to sign a contract with the health insurance companies. To obtain that insurance coverage, the system requires you to complete an intensive postgraduate education program. Once you “survive” that training, you can operate independently with insurance backing. But getting accepted into that postgraduate track is incredibly difficult because the market is saturated with applicants and the available training spots are extremely scarce.

Rafi: So, you are structurally forced through this postgraduate track just to be able to practice outside of the standard institutional model?

Elena Denker: Yes. I can legally start without it, but client acquisition becomes incredibly difficult because my services wouldn’t be covered by insurance, meaning clients have to pay entirely out of pocket.

Rafi: Ah, I see. So, this advanced education acts as a credentialing network that channels insurance referrals to you.

Elena Denker: Exactly.

Rafi: That is the reality of a modern therapist’s life.

Elena Denker: It really is, and it demands an enormous amount of time. Because of these limitations, I’ve also been seriously considering professional options in Belgium, as they offer similar advanced training programs that grant comparable structural benefits but feel significantly more aligned with my therapeutic philosophy. I’m actively looking around for alternative options. I even sat down with Claire Spiller recently to look into potential avenues in the UK. I’m very much in a period of searching for what comes next.

4. Co-Creating the Gelassenheit Approach

Rafi: From my secret sources I know that you have been collaborating closely with Janeta Tansey.

Elena Denker: Yes, that’s right. We began collaborating during my very first year of clinical work, a time when I was grappling with a lot of heavy existential questions about my practice. Right out of the gate, I was encountering profoundly challenging clinical topics like severe trauma and suicide. I had no shortage of clinical guidance from my supervisors regarding standard safety protocols, but I felt a deep void when it came to the philosophical grounding needed to process these human crises.

I initiated a dialogue with Alfred and Janeta, bringing them my questions about how they conceptualized these intense existential situations. That shared inquiry is what ultimately led us to explore Gelassenheit. Since then, Janeta and I have been co-authoring a few papers focused on applying Gelassenheit directly to psychotherapy.

Rafi: Yes, I’ve read them! I think they are absolutely fantastic, you and Janeta did a wonderful job.

Elena Denker: Thank you so much! Working with her has been an incredible gift, and it has genuinely fueled my growth as a therapist. What I find so beautiful about Gelassenheit—and about Janeta’s approach—is that it keeps all existential possibilities open. She embodies a truly open attitude. It completely avoids the rigid stance of proclaiming, “This specific modality is the absolute truth and exactly what you must do with every client”.

That dogmatism is what I find so stifling when learning mainstream therapies. For instance, when you take a schema therapy course, the trainers tend to frame their model as the definitive way to resolve a client’s suffering. In contrast, our work with Gelassenheit focuses entirely on maintaining radical openness.

Rafi: That makes perfect sense, and it aligns beautifully with Heidegger’s perspective. He famously emphasized paths (Wege), not (static) works (Werke).

Elena Denker: Yes, that completely resonates with how I feel. It’s been a lonely road at times because many of my colleagues find a specific clinical manual or protocol that perfectly satisfies them, and they are content to operate entirely within it. But I have never found a mainstream modality where I feel 100% at home, because I am always acutely aware of its reductionist limitations.

Gelassenheit is the closest I have ever come to finding a professional home, precisely because its core foundation is openness itself.

5. Rethinking “Mental Illness” and Therapeutic “Magic”

Rafi: You’ve tasted quite a few clinical flavors: standard psychology, existential therapy, and strict Daseinanalysis. What is your current assessment of traditional Daseinanalysis? Does it feel like home, or do you still feel a certain distance from it?

Elena Denker: Honestly, it’s a bit of both. I feel deeply at home with specific dimensions of Daseinanalysis—specifically its radical person-centered ethos, its profound openness, and the commitment to letting the person’s experience lead the session. That is incredibly vital to me. Yet, I simultaneously feel a certain detachment because it can be an exceptionally abstract framework to navigate practically.

I’ve attended several lectures by Miles Groth, and as Daseinanalysts often point out, the approach intentionally avoids providing a rigid therapeutic structure or manualized techniques to hold onto. While that posture of pure openness is beautiful, it means every single session is a completely uncharted landscape. That can be incredibly difficult to navigate, especially at this early stage of my career.

What attracts me so much to our specific Gelassenheit approach is that it explicitly accommodates non-Gelassenheit as well. Janeta and I have written about this: there are times in therapy where it is necessary to step out of pure “letting-be” and actively “leap in” to protect the person.

Rafi: Striking that delicate balance between open way-making care and direct intervention.

Elena Denker: Exactly. Navigating that tension is a constant struggle, but the fact that the Gelassenheit approach explicitly opens up space to discuss and play with that balance is exactly why it resonates with me more than traditional Daseinanalysis.

Rafi: Speaking of Daseinanalysis, who would you say is your favorite practitioner in the field, living or deceased? I know, it is a tricky question.

Elena Denker: I don’t know if I have a definitive favorite. The only person I’ve encountered who operates purely and completely as a Daseinanalyst is Miles. I know there are many experienced therapists at the roundtable seminars, but I am never entirely sure if they are fully committed, 100% Daseinanalysts, or if they are like Janeta and me—practitioners with a deep interest who integrate it into a broader perspective. So, I don’t really have a single answer for you.

Rafi: You mentioned earlier the clinical need for a compass or a map. I highly recommend the work of Gion Condrau. He has passed away, but he wrote an exceptional book titled Martin Heidegger’s Impact on Psychotherapy. In terms of practical clinical navigation, I find his work far more concrete than that of others, as it focuses deeply on the direct Daseinanalytic encounter.

Elena Denker: Oh, that sounds wonderful, I will absolutely look it up! Let me note down… Martin Heidegger’s Impact on Psychotherapy?

Rafi: Yes, Impact.

Elena Denker: Wait, looking at my shelf right now, I actually already own that book! The title sounded instantly familiar. I think I bought it a few years ago when I first started studying with Miles.

Rafi: Excellent! You have quite a rich treasure chest at your disposal.

Elena Denker: I really do. It has been an immense luxury to sit in these seminars with such deeply experienced therapists. Back in university, my friends and I were constantly wrestling with the rigid constraints of mainstream psychology, the DSM, and manualized protocols. We felt a severe lack of client-centered depth, and that frustration only intensified once I entered actual clinical practice. Being able to sit with your group has been a sanctuary; you gave formal language to the intuitive feelings and frustrations I was experiencing but couldn’t yet articulate. It is a true treasure trove.

Rafi: Let’s dive into one of foundational questions: What is your perspective on “mental illness”? Does it possess objective reality, or is it an institutional fiction?

Elena Denker: I would say it absolutely exists, but the nuance lies in how we define it.

Rafi: Do you view it as a literal medical illness?

Elena Denker: For the vast majority of clients I encounter in my day-to-day practice, no, I would not characterize their suffering as a medical illness. Of course, psychological distress can be heavily influenced by somatic factors, for example, severe chronic stress or a thyroid imbalance can clinically manifest as profound depression. However, the average individuals I work with are people wrestling with painful life transitions, individuals who have become stuck within their own internal narratives, or people who feel deeply estranged from their daily lives and histories. That existential stuckness causes immense suffering, but it isn’t a somatic disease that can be resolved with a medical cure.

That being said, I do recognize that severe psychiatric conditions, such as acute psychosis, have a much more pronounced organic, medical component. In reality, the medical and the existential are always fluidly intertwined, but for the typical client in therapy, we are not treating a medical illness.

Rafi: If it isn’t a medical disease, what exactly is fractured or disturbed when a person seeks your help?

Elena Denker: I believe it is fundamentally individual, which is precisely why I love the singular focus of Gelassenheit—it honors the absolute uniqueness of every person. Frequently, what is disrupted is a person’s relationship with themselves due to unresolved trauma. These traumatic experiences get frozen or “stuck” over time. This leaves the individual in constant daily distress, or blocks them from accessing their own emotional core, making them feel completely estranged from who they are. That represents the largest demographic in my practice.

Furthermore, people often develop rigid, defensive coping mechanisms that outlive their usefulness—such as habitually suppressing intense emotions or isolating themselves from others. Therapy, then, acts as an open laboratory for new relational experiences and practicing healthier ways of being.

Rafi: What do you consider the most vital component of that clinical process? Where does the actual healing reside? Clients come to you in deep pain, and then, somehow, the “magic” happens.

Elena Denker: I’m not sure I believe in literal magic! For me, the core of healing lies in offering absolute, undivided individual attention and unconditional respect for the human being sitting across from you. It requires showing up with radical authenticity. I place immense emphasis on working directly with emotions, creating a safe space where people are explicitly allowed to feel the full depth of their pain.

When a client is drowning in distressing emotions, the therapist often experiences a powerful urge to intervene, pull out a CBT worksheet, and try to force the negative emotion away to make them feel better. But I believe the true therapeutic breakthrough occurs when you resist that urge, let the emotion exist exactly as it is, and remain open to it. By modeling that openness, you help the client learn to be open to themselves.

Rafi: Allowing them the space to break down and truly cry.

Elena Denker: Exactly. It allows them to truly experience profound feelings that they have locked away for years, for whatever reason. Perhaps they were culturally conditioned to suppress their vulnerability, or perhaps the raw emotion simply felt too terrifying to face alone, especially with deep-seated trauma.

Beyond that, I must admit I don’t fully know what the ultimate “magic formula” of therapy is. Sometimes, the catalyst for healing isn’t even what happens inside the session; it’s a practical change the client implements in their external reality, like finding an empowering new job. External events can be just as therapeutic.

6. The Guidelines of a Gelassenheit Practice

Rafi: If you were to summarize your approach, how would you frame it? What do you distill from existentialism and strict Daseinanalysis? Do you utilize the traditional analyst’s couch?

Elena Denker: If I had to distill it into a definitive label, I would state that my practice is anchored in the Gelassenheit approach. And I mean Gelassenheit specifically as Janeta and I have articulated it in our co-authored papers.

Rafi: So, you have formally co-created an entirely new therapeutic modality! Alongside psychoanalysis, CBT, and Daseinanalysis, there is now an emerging school of thought called Gelassenheit Therapy.

Elena Denker: Yes, exactly! And I believe that hybridity is its greatest strength; it perfectly captures who I am as a clinician. The power of Gelassenheit therapy is that it synthesizes diverse lineages of thought. It directly crystallized from the intense dialogues between Alfred, Janeta, and myself. It integrates Alfred’s rigorous philosophical concepts, Janeta’s deep clinical experience and philosophical wisdom, and my own real-world questions arising from the frontlines of standard CBT practice. This blend creates a framework that feels wonderfully balanced and naturally fits my personality.

Within therapy, it blends existential client-centered values with a disciplined, radical commitment to the phenomenology of the client’s immediate experience. We refuse to look at a patient, slap a “major depressive disorder” label on them, and assume their internal world matches a generic textbook definition. We explore what the experience means uniquely for them. We also prioritize the true therapeutic relationship. Concurrently, we retain the pragmatic capacity to “leap in” and provide structure when clinical safety demands it—an aspect borrowed from mainstream models. Gelassenheit is the art of dynamically balancing these forces.

Rafi: As a co-developer of this approach, tell me, what are its practical rules? Are there mandates regarding session frequency, specialized concepts, or using a couch?

Elena Denker: I do not use a couch. The primary rule within Gelassenheit is maintaining absolute openness regarding the physical and relational space. If a therapy room offers multiple seating arrangements, we explicitly present those options to the client and grant them total autonomy to choose. We never dictate where or how a client must position themselves.

Rafi: So, you deliberately dismantle the traditional power dynamic between therapist and patient.

Elena Denker: That is paramount. A core pillar of Gelassenheit is letting the client move ahead of you and lead the way. You consciously surrender institutional power and hand agency back to the individual.

However, that dynamic is responsive, not rigid. If a client is in the grip of severe, acute suicidal ideation, that is the exact moment the therapist must step in and reclaim authority to preserve safety. We treat the power dynamic as something to be danced with fluidly.

Rafi: So, would explicit rule of your school be that suicide must be actively prevented?

Elena Denker: Yes, absolutely. This marks a major philosophical departure from certain traditional branches of Daseinanalysis. In Gelassenheit therapy, we unequivocally advocate for “leaping in” to preserve life and stop suicide.

Rafi: What is the philosophical foundation for that stance? Why is suicide fundamentally an intervention point?

Elena Denker: Because suicide permanently obliterates all future human possibilities. Now, I recognize there are complex ethical nuances. This is a fierce debate in the Netherlands right now, as our legal system allows individuals experiencing severe, intractable psychiatric suffering to legally request medical euthanasia—reminiscent of historical cases like Binswanger’s Ellen West. But in the vast majority of standard therapeutic encounters, we must intervene aggressively to prevent suicide. For me, it is a boundary we must protect.

Interviewer: I personally agree with you completely, but I’d love to hear your deeper perspective on why life is worth fighting for.

Elena Denker: Because in most instances, acute suicidal urges are an intense, temporary reaction to overwhelming immediate circumstances. It is impossible to accurately judge in a moment of agonizing crisis whether a person’s entire existence is genuinely unlivable, or if they are simply responding to transient situational pain that can either improve or be integrated over time. I believe there is almost always a horizon of hope.

Rafi: So, you operate from the core belief that life is inherently worth living?

Elena Denker: Yes, I do.

Rafi: What makes existence so inherently incredible?

Elena Denker: For me personally, there are endless reasons. But what drew me to Gelassenheit is the realization that there is no single, objective universal formula for a meaningful life. It is entirely personal. It’s about helping the individual discover their own unique anchors, whether that means cultivating deep relational closeness with others or dedicating themselves to work they find genuinely important—and weaving those into their daily existence as much as possible. The tragedy of suicide is that it robs the individual of the chance to discover those personal meanings. I can easily identify what makes life beautiful for me, but we can never assume what that looks like for another person until we map it out together.

7. Mapping the Future of Gelassenheit Therapy

Rafi: So, under the guidelines of Gelassenheit: the client possesses total freedom of movement in the room, they are unconditionally protected from self-harm, and the power dynamic is fluid. In plain, everyday human language, what do you actually do during a session?

Elena Denker: In plain human language, you dedicate yourself entirely to being radically present and open to the human being sitting across from you. You listen with absolute, undivided focus to their words. You intentionally suspend your own therapeutic biases, expert assumptions, and the clinical urge to pigeonhole their suffering into diagnostic boxes. You remain fully open to whatever unpredictable emotional terrain unfolds in the room. Essentially, you stop trying to micro-manage or heavily steer the client’s narrative.

Rafi: Are you permitted to ask direct questions or express your own authentic emotions as a therapist?

Elena Denker: Yes, absolutely. Those are excellent interventions within a Gelassenheit framework, provided that your questions or emotional expressions serve to open up new horizons of possibility for the client, rather than closing down or restricting the dialogue.

For example, in manualized CBT, if a client articulates a painful belief, the protocol dictates that you label it a “cognitive distortion” and challenge its rationality. In Gelassenheit, instead of diagnosing and correcting the thought, you invite them to expand on it: “Tell me more about that. Help me see how that feels”. You keep the spotlight entirely on the phenomenology of their lived experience.

Rafi: This is incredibly powerful. I would definitely love to read a book on Gelassenheit Therapy co-written by Elena Denker.

Elena Denker: Thank you! We have actually discussed that seriously. Right now, I find myself at a significant professional crossroads, trying to figure out where to focus my finite energy. Do I pour all my time and focus into jumping through the bureaucratic hoops of the Dutch institutional system to secure conventional clinical independence, or do I boldly commit to the philosophical work I am genuinely passionate about, like expanding Gelassenheit? Janeta and I are planning our next co-authored paper, so the concept of continuing to build this approach is very much alive.

Rafi: It sounds brilliant, and suprisingly, it might be your truest path to genuine professional independence. If you become recognized internationally as the co-creator of the Gelassenheit approach, you won’t be structurally dependent on mainstream insurance systems or confined by institutional modalities.

Elena Denker: That is a highly appealing thought. However, the reality is that gaining a reputation for philosophical therapy in the Netherlands might actively damage my chances of being accepted into the highly conventional, protocol-driven Dutch postgraduate programs. It’s a difficult double-edged sword. I have to map out my strategy with immense care.

Yet, you are completely right: if I lean heavily on the philosophical focus now, it could build the exact visibility needed to attract a thriving base of private clients who are searching for depth, allowing me to practice freely without restrictive insurance contracts. I am at a crossroads, but regardless of the immediate timeline, we are absolutely committed to developing the Gelassenheit approach further.

Rafi: Great! Translating these dense Heideggerian concepts into accessible, everyday language—the “normal human language” – is incredibly important. I am convinced there is a vast community of practicing therapists out there who are starved for this kind of depth and would be deeply interested in this approach.

Elena, thank you immensely for this rich conversation today.

Elena Denker: Thank you as well.

Rafi: It was an absolute joy to meet you and connect so deeply—human to human.

Elena Denker: Yes, it truly was. And thank you for the opportunity to publish this on your website. It will be a tremendous help in promoting the Gelassenheit approach.

Rafi: I hold your work and your collaboration with Janeta Tansey in the highest regard, so the pleasure is mine. Thank you.

Elena Denker: Thank you so much. Have a wonderful day.

Rafi: Likewise!

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For a complementary exploration of Gelassenheit and its significance for Daseinanalysis, read our earlier conversation: Gelassenheit in Daseinanalysis.