Rafi Miętkiewicz
Introduction
Madness has always fascinated me—not as something to be tamed or cured, but as a profoundly human phenomenon that demands to be understood. Is it a rupture? A reordering? Erik Kuravsky uses the expression “being ‘verrückt’—displaced of existence” to describe it. Others have seen it as an inevitable, even necessary, stage in the soul’s unfolding.
Assuming madness is an existential wound, what facilitates healing it? In my opinion, it is love—but not love as sentiment, nor the sterile distance of clinical care. I mean therapeutic Eros, of which Miles Groth and Charlotte Aigner have spoken and written beautifully. A love that dares to enter the other’s world without fear or expectation. There is something both perilous and profound in this because therapeutic Eros does not seek to fix anything; it aims to be-with. It is about meeting the other in their madness, holding them tenderly, not pulling them back toward so-called normality. It is in this space—where madness and love touch—that real transformation happens.
From a daseinsanalytic point of view—as Tamás Fazekas has taught me—we can begin to analyse madness more closely by examining which of the actualizations of crucial existentials have become most disturbed or distorted in the person’s being-in-the-world. Is there a collapse of temporality, a loss of spatial belonging, a rupture in being-with or thrownness? Each existential disruption gives us clues not only to the nature of the wound but also to how the person might be met. In this light, madness is not a clinical category but a phenomenological event—a cry emerging from the breakdown of existential structures. And it is precisely here that therapeutic Eros becomes most vital: it listens, not to the symptoms, but to the silent scream of Dasein itself.
Let me share why I chose the form of a film review and analysis: writing a Daseinsanalytic film review allows us to illuminate the deeper existential structures at play within a character’s world, revealing not only narrative developments but also how Being shows itself—or becomes concealed—in the unfolding of the story. Just as the psychoanalytic movement found richness and public relevance in writing psychoanalytic film analyses, Daseinsanalysis too can benefit from this engagement with cinema. Film gives us access to attunements, moods, and ruptures of meaning that echo real human experiences. By interpreting films through a Daseinsanalytic lens, we can show how existential phenomena like thrownness, attunement, being-with, or the search for authenticity are not abstract concepts, but embodied realities. Moreover, this kind of work helps make Daseinsanalysis more accessible—inviting both clinicians and laypeople into a way of seeing that is not about theory, but about deep, human truth.
Few stories capture the phenomena of existential wound and madness better than Joker, a psychological thriller and character study directed by Todd Phillips and released in 2019. The film stars Joaquin Phoenix in the title role, Arthur Fleck, with supporting performances by Robert De Niro as Murray Franklin, Zazie Beetz as Sophie, and Frances Conroy as Penny Fleck, Arthur’s mother. The screenplay was written by Todd Phillips and Scott Silver, with cinematography by Lawrence Sher and music by Hildur Guðnadóttir, whose haunting score received critical acclaim. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival, where it won the Golden Lion, and Phoenix went on to win the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance.
Arthur Fleck’s descent is not just personal—it is existential, a collapse in a world that refuses to see him. I will use his example to illustrate my thesis: madness grows when there is no real recognition, and love—if present—can change its course. In the sequel, Joker: Folie à Deux, his connection with Lady Gaga’s Harley Quinn raises an even deeper question: what happens when madness meets love? Does it destroy, or does it heal? And, more importantly, what if Joker had found therapeutic Eros instead of an energizing and hope-giving, but merely in therapeutic effect, romance?
What I will present will not be a theoretical analysis; it will be an invitation to rethink madness and embrace therapeutic Eros.
Plot of the Movie
Let me start by presenting the plot of the movie with some commentary. I have divided the content into 10 chapters.
Chapter 1: The Street and the System
At the beginning of the film, Arthur Fleck is working as a clown-for-hire in the streets of Gotham. While performing his job by advertising outside a store, a group of teenagers attacks him, steals his sign, and beats him mercilessly in an alley. He returns to work bruised and broken. At his social service appointment—therapy meeting—he attempts to speak about his struggles, only to find that his voice is dismissed. His uncontrollable cry-laughter is met with indifference, as though he were already beyond explanation.
- Is it just me or is it getting crazier out there? … I was wondering if you could ask the doctor to increase my medication.
- Arthur, you’re on seven different medications. Surely, they must be doing something.
- I just don’t want to feel so bad anymore.
He discloses that he keeps a journal, where he records his thoughts and sketches out ideas for jokes. He aspires to become a stand-up comedian. Among the entries, one line expresses his quiet despair: “I just hope my death makes more sense than my life.”
From an existential perspective, this opening scene paints the initial signs of his Geworfenheit—thrownness. Arthur is thrown into a world that does not want him, does not see him, and does not care. His suffering is not just psychological, but ontological. There is nobody actualizing his being-with, his Mitsein; there is nobody to hold him. He is utterly ungrounded, denied a place in shared existence. Gotham is not merely a city but an oppressive horizon that denies him space to exist authentically.
Chapter 2: Bus — The Body That Betrays
On a bus home, Arthur tries to entertain a child but is met with suspicion from the mother. When his uncontrollable laughter erupts, he hands her a card explaining his condition—a neurological disorder causing inappropriate laughter. She remains fearful and dismissive.
Existentially, Arthur’s body ceases to be his own. It does not serve him in reaching others—it alienates him. He is disembodied in the sense that his gestures no longer connect with the world. He is no longer capable of “bodying-forth” (leiben).
Chapter 3: Home — Fantasies of Being-With
In the elevator, Arthur develops an immediate fascination with his neighbor, Sophie. He imagines a romantic relationship with her, including her presence at his stand-up performance. Later, it is revealed these encounters never occurred. Upon returning home, Arthur is seen caring for his mother, bringing her food and attending to her needs. She speaks admiringly of Thomas Wayne, insisting she once knew him and calling him a great man. As they watch The Murray Franklin Show together, Arthur slips into a fantasy, imagining himself as a guest on the show, basking in Murray’s warmth and receiving the kind of paternal affection he’s never known.
- There is something special about you… I mean, I loved hearing what you had to say. It made my day.
- Thanks, Murray.
- You see all this, the lights, the show, the audience, all that stuff? I’d give it all up in a heartbeat to have a kid like you.
These imagined relationships represent Arthur’s longing for fulfilled being-with—the essential relational dimension of Dasein. In a world where he receives no affirmation, he creates internal structures where love, intimacy, and admiration exist. These hallucinations are not pathology in the medical sense—they are the ontological residue of unmet relational needs. These imagined moments show what he longs for: not success, but affirmation of existence.
Chapter 4: Work and Killings
At work, Arthur is still recovering from the assault in the alley when his colleague Randall offers him a gun “for protection.” Arthur initially hesitates, reminding Randall that he’s not supposed to have one, but the gesture is framed as friendship and survival. Soon after, Arthur is called in by his boss, Hoyt, who accuses him of losing the store sign—despite Arthur having been violently attacked while holding it. Hoyt threatens to dock his pay, showing no concern for the beating. Arthur’s response is a dissociated, vacant smile—a mask he wears to survive in a world that refuses to recognize his pain.
While performing at a children’s hospital, Arthur dances and entertains the young patients dressed in his clown costume. In the middle of his routine, the gun Randall gave him slips from his costume and falls to the floor. The moment is jarring—laughter turns to silence. Though he tries to play it off, the damage is done. This accidental reveal marks a turning point: not only does he lose his job, but the illusion of control begins to unravel.
On the subway, Arthur is witnessing a woman being harassed by three businessmen. His laughter draws their attention, and they beat him. This time, Arthur responds with violence, killing all three. Afterward, he escapes to the bathroom and dances—slowly, ritualistically.
This moment is pivotal. It marks the beginning of a shift: from a fragmented, reactive self to a self that acts with agency. The dance signifies his return to the body—no longer passive, but expressive. The dance is deeply symbolic—for the first time, he moves with presence, as if he is re-entering his body with new purpose. He is no longer Arthur. Joker is emerging.
Chapter 5: Searching for the Father
Afterwards, Arthur comes home, where in the news he hears Wayne speaking:
What kind of coward would do something that cold-blooded? Someone who hides behind a mask. Someone who is envious of those more fortunate than themselves, yet they’re too scared to show their own face. And until those kind of people change for the better, those of us who have made something of our lives will always look at those who haven’t as nothing but clowns.
He goes to therapy, where he speaks frankly:
You don’t listen, do you? I don’t think you ever really hear me. You just ask the same questions every week. “How’s your job? Are you having any negative thoughts?” All I have are negative thoughts, but you don’t listen anyway. I said, for my whole life, I didn’t know if I even really existed. But I do. And people are starting to notice.
On his way home, Arthur stops to perform stand-up comedy. The act goes terribly in reality, but in his fantasy, it’s a triumph—ending with a perfect date with Sophie, a date that exists only in his imagination. Back at home, he discovers a letter written by his mother, claiming that Thomas Wayne is his biological father. After a violent confrontation with her, Arthur decides to visit Wayne Manor, interacts with young Bruce, and later confronts Thomas Wayne at a theatre. Wayne dismisses him and claims Arthur was adopted, and his mother is delusional. Here is the part of their conversation:
- My name is Arthur. Penny Fleck is my mother.
- Jesus. You’re the guy that came to my house yesterday.
- Yes. [Thomas laughs]
- I’m sorry I just showed up. But my mother told me everything, and I had to talk to you.
- Look, pal, I’m not your father. What’s wrong with you? Look at us.
- I think you are.
- Well, that’s impossible because you’re adopted, and I never slept with your mother.
- I wasn’t adopted.
- What do you want from me? Money?
- No, I don’t… I wasn’t adopted.
- Jesus. She never told you?
- Told me what?
- Your mother adopted you while she was working for us.
- That’s not true. Why are you saying that?
- Then she was arrested and committed to Arkham State Hospital, when you were just a little boy.
- Why are you saying this? I don’t need you to tell me lies. I know it seems strange. I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I don’t know why everyone is so rude. I don’t know why you are. I don’t want anything from you. Maybe a little bit of warmth, maybe a hug, Dad! How about just a little bit of fucking decency? What is it with you people? You say that stuff about my mother.
- She’s crazy. She’s… [laughing] You think this is funny?
- Dad, it’s me. Come on.
- [Thomas punches him] Touch my (real) son again and I’ll fucking kill you.
This chapter is a quest for origin. He wants to know where he came from, to place himself within a narrative of belonging. But the father figure—symbolic of grounding and authority—rejects him. The existential implication is devastating—he is not only unsupported, but also unplaceable.
Chapter 6: The Arkham Files
Arthur steals his mother’s medical records from Arkham State Hospital, where he discovers a devastating truth: he was adopted, abused, and his mother not only failed to protect him but allowed the mistreatment. He uncovers evidence of disturbing cruelty inflicted upon both—newspapers once ran headlines like “Home of Terror for Mother and Child.” Among the files, he finds his mother’s diagnosis: delusional psychosis, specifically the belief that Thomas Wayne was Arthur’s father. Yet even this remains uncertain—was it truly a delusion, or a buried truth? After reading the files, Arthur collapses into a stairwell, laughing and crying at once.
This is a moment of Entbergung—unconcealment. Truth, no matter how horrific, becomes visible. But this visibility does not heal; it wounds deeper. Temporality collapses—the past is a lie, the future is void. What remains is a terrifying, raw presence.
Chapter 7: From Tragedy to Comedy
Arthur visits his mother in the hospital and, just before suffocating her with a pillow, he says:
- You know how you used to tell me that my laugh was a condition? That there was something wrong with me? There isn’t. That’s the real me.
- [Penny, weakly] Happy. (She used to call him “Happy” throughout his whole life.)
- Happy. Hmm. I haven’t been happy one minute of my entire fucking life… I used to think my life was a tragedy, but now I realize it’s a comedy.
At the hospital, Arthur watches a segment on TV where Murray Franklin airs a clip of his humiliating performance at Pogos Pub, mocking his failed attempt at stand-up comedy. Later, at home, Arthur receives a phone call—Franklin’s team is inviting him to the show, as the video has gone viral. Arthur begins preparing meticulously: he rehearses his entrance, practices his lines, and carefully applies his clown makeup. In his mind, the transformation is complete—he is no longer Arthur, but Joker. In the midst of this, Gary and Randall, former co-workers, arrive unexpectedly. Arthur brutally kills Randall but spares Gary, quietly saying, “You were the only one who was ever kind to me.”
Killing his mother is not only symbolic of breaking ties with delusion, but also the end of his inherited narrative. The line—“I used to think my life was a tragedy, but now I realize it’s a comedy”—is existential reframing. He embraces the absurd not as despair, but as a creative posture. His being becomes performative and aesthetic. Joker is not a mask. It is a new mode of existing. When Arthur kills Randall and spares Gary, he is forming an ethics—distorted, yes, but rooted in his own lived truth.
Chapter 8: The Talk Show Execution
On live television, Arthur confesses to the subway murders. He denounces society’s cruelty and its abandonment of people like him. Please listen carefully to his words:
I don’t believe in anything… I killed those guys because they were awful. Everybody is awful these days. It’s enough to make anyone crazy. I pass you every day, and you don’t notice me. You’re awful, Murray, too—by playing my video. Inviting me to this show. You just wanted to make fun of me. You’re just like the rest of them. How about another joke, Murray? What do you get… when you cross a mentally ill loner with a society that abandons him and treats him like trash? I’ll tell you what you get! You get what you fucking deserve! (shoots Murray in the head)
This act is horrifying, but within the existential frame, it is a final scream. A demand to be seen, heard, reckoned with. His violence is not directed at a person—it is directed at the symbolic order that erased him. The stage becomes his clearing, and his truth, however terrifying, is laid bare.
Chapter 9: Riots and Recognition
As Gotham erupts in riots, protestors wear clown masks and chant against the elite, with signs “We are all clowns.” Arthur is rescued from police custody and celebrated by the mob. He stands atop a car, bleeding and triumphant.
Society’s own repressed suffering finds expression through Joker. He becomes a symbol—not of crime, but of breakdown. The social fabric tears. The crowd lifts him not because he is right, but because he is real. The mask now reveals what society has concealed: pain, abandonment, and rage.
Chapter 10: Arkham Asylum
The film ends with Arthur in Arkham, speaking to a new therapist, who seems just as removed as the first. But this time, Joker is no longer pleading. He laughs. “You wouldn’t get it.” He has stepped beyond. Whether she lives or dies is irrelevant. Joker has ceased to seek connection through ordinary means. He has become an icon of the uncontained. He is no longer seeking understanding. He has embraced his solitude. His laugh, once a symptom, is now a mark of identity. He is a scream. He is Dasein unanchored.
More Careful Examination of Selected Existentials
Tamás Fazekas once noted that, in the Daseinsanalytic process, we must pay close attention to how a patient’s existentials are being actualized. I will not explore all of them here but have selected four that I believe are particularly significant in the life of Arthur Fleck—and would be especially relevant in a Daseinsanalytic therapy, had such help ever been offered to him.
Joker’s Thrownness
For Arthur Fleck, his actualization of thrownness is a particularly painful and devastating condition, shaping his existence with a relentless sense of abandonment and disorientation. He has been cast into a world over which he had no choice, a social, economic, and familial reality that constrains him from the beginning. He does not choose to be poor, mentally ill, or socially marginalized. He is thrown into these conditions and must now take responsibility for being—with almost no viable possibilities available to him.
When Arthur Fleck—the future Joker—was born, Gotham City was already in a state of deep decay. It was a city unraveling from within: plagued by systemic corruption, stark economic inequality, rising crime, and institutional neglect. The social services were crumbling, the streets were littered with garbage due to an ongoing sanitation strike, and public trust in leadership was virtually nonexistent. Gotham was not merely a backdrop; it was a suffocating atmosphere—grey, cold, and indifferent—a world that mirrored and magnified Arthur’s inner desolation. In such a place, the possibility of care or belonging seemed as distant as light in an abandoned tunnel.
His thrownness is not simply environmental; it is revealed through his moods. His laughter—involuntary and misunderstood—is a reaction toward the world that feels increasingly hostile and absurd. This laughter is not joy but fracture. He flees into fantasies—inauthentic possibilities—of romance, fame, and parental recognition. These are not whimsical dreams; they are expressions of his entanglement with das Man, the “they-self,” as he seeks to define himself in relation to what others say he should be.
Arthur is thrown into the world with no say in the matter yet burdened with the responsibility of making sense of it. Tragically, he cannot make sense of it. He is verrückt. His being is not grounded in a stable social structure, nor in a secure identity. His origins are obscured, his history rewritten, and even his body—with its uncontrollable laughter—fails to be an ally. In this way, his thrownness is not merely an abstract concept, but a lived, embodied despair. The moment he begins to act—to project himself, even through violence—he paradoxically enacts the freedom that thrownness always contains.
Yet this freedom is tragic. It is not the freedom of authentic being, but the desperate expression of someone no longer willing to evade the truth of his existence. Arthur is not “free” in the ordinary sense. But in the stark revelation of his own groundlessness, he becomes what Heidegger called a “preserver of the thrown projection”—one who carries his thrownness forward, even into madness. His story is not a warning about individual pathology, but about what happens when a human being is thrown into a world that refuses to offer any ground upon which to stand.
Joker’s Being-With
Arthur’s alienation in Joker also demonstrates a deep fracture in the actualization of the existential structure of being-with. Heidegger reminds us that we are always already with others—that Dasein is always being-in a shared world. Arthur is, in this sense, never simply alone; his loneliness is only possible because he is being-with others in the most painful way—alone in a crowd. His entire existence is permeated by the pain of being fundamentally misunderstood, unseen, and unwelcomed within the Mitwelt.
He lives with his mother, a relationship that at first glance suggests intimacy but is revealed to be one of mutual delusion and concealment. He imagines romantic connection with Sophie, friendship with his co-workers, and recognition from Murray Franklin. Each of these imagined relationships is a desperate projection toward being-with—toward finding an other who sees him as a person. But each collapses under the weight of facticity. None of them are real. And those who are real—like Randall or his boss—do not meet him with solicitude (Fürsorge), but with suspicion, betrayal, and dismissal.
Arthur is surrounded by others, yet remains unaccompanied. The everyday solicitude that could manifest as care, recognition, or even benign consideration is absent. Instead, he encounters others as obstacles or threats. He is treated as present-at-hand, as a malfunctioning object, rather than as a being-in-the-world with others. The deficient modes of solicitude—neglect, disregard, and avoidance—dominate Arthur’s social space.
In the absence of authentic being-with, Arthur fragments. His hallucinations are not just symptoms of mental instability—they are existential compensations for the lack of shared world. He conjures a community in which he can be-with in ways the actual world denies him. But these are not sustainable. As they fall apart, he is driven further into isolation.
Heidegger speaks of the highest form of solicitude—that which “leaps ahead” in order to return the other’s care to them authentically. Arthur never receives this. No one leaps ahead for him. Instead, they leap away. He is left with the unbearable task of shouldering a world that does not want him, with others who refuse to be-with him. The tragedy is not simply that he is unloved. It is that he was never truly seen.
What is worth mentioning is that, despite it all, Arthur’s being-towards-others in the early part of the film is marked by a quiet, often clumsy gentleness. He tries to make a young boy smile on the bus, reaching out not with force but with a longing to connect. At home, he cares tenderly for his mother—bathing her, feeding her, and listening to her stories with patience. These gestures reflect a basic, vulnerable openness toward others—a desire not only to be seen, but to share space meaningfully.
It is only then, as his world collapses under the weight of humiliation, abandonment, and systemic failure, that his orientation toward others shifts dramatically. The gentle openness curdles into resentment, and the wish to be-with transforms into a readiness to strike against. Rejected by the world, Arthur’s being-with fractures into violence: not because he was born cruel, but because every hand he reached for withdrew, leaving him to face existence alone.
Joker’s Care (Sorge)
At the heart of Arthur Fleck’s tragic trajectory lies the existential structure of Sorge, or care, which Heidegger identifies as the fundamental character of Dasein. Dasein is care—and it means to be ahead of oneself, to already be in a world, and to be amidst things and others. Arthur’s existence in Joker is marked by this structure in both its absence and distortion.
In his everyday life, Arthur projects possibilities—he wants to become a stand-up comedian, to be recognized, to find love, to make his mother proud. These are expressions of care: he is ahead of himself, reaching toward a future in which he might be whole. But the world he is thrown into thwarts these projections at every turn. The factical possibilities offered to him—work, safety, dignity, relationship—are structurally blocked. The actualization of his “care” is never allowed to unfold.
This failure is not just circumstantial. It is existential. He encounters the world with care, but the world refuses to care for him in return. His caring becomes distorted—care becomes desperation, even obsession. He still exists as care, but it is care imploding under the impossibility of fulfillment.
Arthur’s concern for the world is evident in his jobs, routines, and even his politeness. But he is not met with the same readiness-to-hand; rather than enabling his existence, the world resists it. His social relationships reveal even more. He experiences no solicitude (Fürsorge) that would help him carry his care, to become transparent to himself through others. Instead, those around him dominate or ignore him. Care, in its most authentic sense—the mutual recognition of existential projection—is denied.
As his projected possibilities collapse, his care turns. He no longer reaches outward. His being-ahead-of-itself in possibility transforms into fixation. The breakdown of temporality that Heidegger sees at the heart of care is visible in Arthur: his future disintegrates, his past is revealed as lie, and his present becomes a site of violent emergence.
But even in madness, Arthur remains care. The becoming of Joker is not an abandonment of care, but its mutation into something raw, fractured, and uncontainable. Joker is still Dasein—still a being for whom being is at issue. But the issue now erupts from the abyss.
Joker’s Attunement (Stimmung)
Arthur Fleck’s attunement, his fundamental way of being-in-the-world, is revealed through the deep melancholy and alienation that pervade his every encounter. Heidegger describes attunement not as a subjective emotional state, but as the existential structure through which Dasein finds itself thrown into the world. Arthur’s attunement is not simply sadness or despair; it is an affective disclosure of his world as fundamentally broken, threatening, and closed.
This mood is not chosen. It descends on Arthur as part of his thrownness. His laughter—involuntary and inappropriate—is an attunement in itself. It is not merely a symptom of illness, but a pre-reflective, affective expression of his estranged relationship to the world. The laughter disrupts every attempt at orientation. He is unable to enter shared space—the bus, the stage, the therapist’s office—without that attunement betraying him.
Heidegger writes that attunements reveal both that we are and how we are. In Arthur’s case, his attunement discloses the burdensomeness of existence as something handed over to him, something he must endure without support. The world appears not as open or inviting, but as mocking, cold, and inaccessible. Even when he fantasizes being loved, being seen, those fantasies are tinted with yearning born from attunement to lack. His hallucinations of Sophie’s affection are structured not by hope, but by the pain of hope’s absence.
Attunement determines not only Arthur’s experience of beings within the world—others, spaces, institutions—but also the very tone of existence itself. The city, gray and crumbling, mirrors his inner disposition. The walls of his apartment close in. The laughter of others is always aimed at him, never with him. The ambient attunement of his life is one of rejection and dislocation.
Heidegger reminds us that some attunements—such as angst—open us not to a particular being, but to the whole of our situation. Arthur’s despair deepens into this kind of basic attunement. His madness is not localized; it becomes an attuned encounter with existence as absurd and unsparing. And within that, he encounters moments of eerie clarity—the dance in the bathroom, the joy before going on the Murray Franklin show. These too are attunements, ones that oscillate between destruction and becoming.
Aletheia and Eros — Truth and Love in the Therapeutic Encounter with Arthur Fleck
Arthur Fleck is not merely a man slipping into madness—he is a human being profoundly lost in the concealment of his own truth. His tragedy is not only psychological or social, but existential. A Daseinsanalytic perspective, rooted in Heidegger’s understanding of aletheia—truth as unconcealment—opens a radically different path for encountering someone like Arthur. Not to fix him, not to diagnose or classify, but to allow his Being to show itself in its own time and form.
Daseinsanalysis does not begin with pathology; it begins with presence. The therapist does not ask “What is wrong with you?” but rather “What is right with you?,” as Miles Groth often says. The Daseinsanalyst listens for how the truth of a person’s Being reveals itself moment by moment. Truth, here, is not correspondence to fact, but an event—the slow, often painful emergence of what has long remained hidden. Arthur’s suffering was never simply a set of symptoms. It was a silent scream—a fracture in his being-in-the-world—that demanded a different kind of listening.
In such a frame, Daseinsanalysis becomes not a method applied to a disorder, but a shared space in which truth can happen—a truth happening, as Hans-Dieter Foerster named it in Athens in 2023. Arthur’s cry-laughter, his fantasies, his hallucinations—all would be welcomed as expressions of a deeper structure breaking down. His psychosis would not be seen as a failure of the mind but as the collapse of existential foundations: his world de-worlded, his possibilities choked by abandonment. He was reaching, even in madness—for voice, for recognition, for love. And no one reached back.
This is where therapeutic Eros becomes essential—a concept well known among Daseinsanalysts around the world. Originally coined by Alberto Seguin, it was later taken up by Medard Boss and further developed and popularized by Charlotte Aigner, Miles Groth, and many others.
Eros, in the existential-therapeutic sense, is not romantic desire, but courageous movement toward the other. It is openness, a devoted presence, a radical willingness to be-with the other—not to analyze, not to intervene, but to witness. In the loving gaze of therapeutic Eros, a person is not treated as a case to be solved but as a mystery to be met. It is this kind of love that could have offered Arthur the possibility of becoming visible—not to the world, but to himself.
A therapist grounded in Eros would not recoil from Arthur’s fragmentation. They would not rush to interpret his violence or hallucinations, but sit beside them in the dark. In that space of attuned non-knowing, something sacred could begin: the truth of Arthur’s Being—his thrownness, his distorted care, his broken being-with—might have slowly come into the light. Even his laughter could be transformed from symptom to symbol—a strange, painful language of survival.
Without such a space, Arthur withdrew into the capsule of the self, a lonely fortress built of trauma and confusion. The capsule protects, but it also isolates. It silences. And when the silence grows unbearable, it either implodes or erupts. Had Arthur encountered someone who could have remained with him—not fixing, not interpreting, but loving him with the clarity and strength of Eros—the violence might have been averted, not through control, but through unconcealment.
Daseinsanalysis offers not just therapy, but sanctuary. A sanctuary for truth, and a sanctuary for love. And love—not sentimentality, not technique, but existential devotion—becomes the force that holds open the space for Being to appear. Arthur needed truth. But truth cannot be demanded. It must be invited. And it arrives—if it arrives at all—only in the presence of love.
I would like to emphasize that Daseinsanalysis is not merely a therapeutic approach—it is a way of life, a way of being-in-the-world. It invites us to dwell more openly, more attentively, more lovingly with one another. If this mode of being were truly shared among people in our communities, much of what we now call “therapy” might no longer be necessary. Joker once said, “People are so awful that anyone can become mad because of it.” But this, I believe, can be changed. When we live “daseinsanalytically”—when we truly see each other, listen without rushing, and respond with presence rather than strategy—we can draw people back from the verrückt edge, back from that displaced place where Being can no longer find ground. We can prevent injustice, loneliness, and perhaps even madness.
Who knows—maybe, in the deepest sense, we could even stop wars. I truly believe this.
Methodological Appendix: Film as Phenomenological Disclosure
- Why film? Film affords a controlled presentation of gestures, silences, and spatial arrangements that make existential structures visible without the reduction of scoring or symptom-counting. It lets us “see” attunement and being-with as they are enacted.
- Limits. Films are not clinical cases and should not be treated as datasets. They stage possibilities, not generalities. The method used here is descriptive and illustrative, not evidentiary in a statistical sense.
- Use in teaching and supervision. A film reading can train clinicians to notice attunement, solicitude, and the deformation of care with greater fidelity. It can also serve as a safe proxy for difficult clinical material, allowing supervised exploration of countertransference and the pull toward managerial interventions.
Legal note
Fair-use notice: Dialogue excerpts from Joker (2019) are reproduced under fair use for purposes of scholarly criticism and review.
References
Aigner, C. (2020). Being a Daseinsanalyst – Questions to a Path of Life. https://www.charlotte-aigner.at/texte/being-a-daseinsanalyst
Aigner, C. (n.d.). Vom psychotherapeutischen Eros. https://www.charlotte-aigner.at/texte/vom-psychotherapeutischen-eros
Boss, M. (1963). Psychoanalysis and Daseinsanalysis (L. B. Lefebre, Trans.). Basic Books.
Boss, M. (1977). Existential foundations of medicine & psychology. Jason Aronson.
Groth, M. (2022). amo: volo ut sis. Therapeutic Eros in Daseinanalysis. Existential Analysis, 33(2).
Groth, M. (2023). Therapeutic Eros in Daseinanalysis: Part 2. Existential Analysis, 34(1), 125–144.
Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and time (J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson, Trans.). Blackwell.
Holzhey-Kunz, A., & Fazekas, T. (2012). Daseinsanalysis: A dialogue. In M. Cooper (Ed.), Existential therapy (1st ed.). Routledge.
Kuravsky, E. (2023). Thinking and the danger of insanity: Two ways of reaching into the abyss. In B. C. Hopkins & D. De Santis (Eds.), The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy (Vol. 21, pp. 543–564). Routledge.
Phillips, T. (Director). (2019). Joker [Film]. Warner Bros. Pictures.
Seguín, C. A. (1963). Amor y psicoterapia: El eros psicoterapéutico. Editorial Paidós.
Seguín, C. A. (1965). Love and psychotherapy: The psychotherapeutic Eros. Libra Publishers.
