Karl Baldacchino reviews Ludwig Binswanger and Fernand Deligny on the Human Condition

Stéphane Symons. Ludwig Binswanger and Fernand Deligny on the Human Condition: Wandering Lines. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2024. 80 pp.

Review by Karl Baldacchino

31 January 2025

In Stéphane Symons’s book, compiled in the form of four articles, the subject of the human condition is tackled from the point of view of the two different approaches to psychiatry of Swiss psychiatrist and pioneer of existential therapy, Ludwig Binswanger (1881–1966), and the French educator, philosopher, and filmmaker, Fernand Deligny (1913–1996). Moreover, Symons’s idea is to create a fictional debate between the two, and therefore in his view an alternative history of unrealized possibilities. For the sake of exploring “what-if” scenarios, the author considers whether such “failed encounters” might yield fresh insights in today's context (p. 6).

The two chosen protagonists are noticeably very different. Binswanger descended from a family of established psychiatrists, being notably the nephew of Otto Ludwig Binswanger, Friedrich Nietzsche’s therapist. In 1911 he took the helm of the Bellevue Sanatorium in Kreuzlingen, a hospital treating patients from wealthy backgrounds, which was founded by his grandfather and previously directed by his father. As an intellectual of existential analysis, Binswanger held seminars, among others, at the prestigious Amphithéâtre Descartes at the Sorbonne. On the other hand, although not a psychiatrist, Fernand Deligny worked in several institutions, teaching and caring for delinquent youths and children with various mental health conditions. Among the institutions was the clinic of La Borde, famed for its alternative psychiatric methods, then under the direction of Félix Guattari, who in 1968 helped Deligny with finding a place for his own alternative care network in Monoblet, near the Cévennes mountain region. A lifelong friend and collaborator of François Truffaut, Deligny was also a filmmaker in his own right and even made use of the medium as a pedagogic tool.

Two other main protagonists are Ellen West and Janmari, who were under Binswanger’s and Deligny’s respective care. Used as case studies, in two separate chapters Symons examines how each thinker’s humanist approach shaped their treatment methods.

In the case of Ellen West, diagnosed with schizophrenia and autism, Symons is interested in highlighting how Binswanger betrays his own humanist ideal, concerned with capturing “the ‘spiritual core’ hidden in the patient’s psychological distress” (p. 15). Yet West, who goes on to commit suicide, was deemed untreatable because Binswanger became “convinced that no lived self-consciousness was possible” in her case (p. 9). To further make his point, in the last chapter Symons cites the institutionalization of Aby Warburg, a notable art scholar, with friends such as Edmund Husserl visiting him while in Bellevue. Binswanger confides in Sigmund Freud that Warburg is also incurable, even if—after an impressive personal effort that Symons details—he is years later discharged as cured. Although Symons does not explicitly address it, one cannot help but notice the difference in how Binswanger treated his male and female patients. On Warburg he made a U-turn, but West’s recovery was out of the question.

As for Deligny, Janmari, the mute, autistic boy who can be seen in the film Ce gamin-là (dir. Renaud Victor, 1976), was regarded simply as a human that “embodied an exceptional life force that had done away with all reflections on death and finitude” (p. 9). In Janmari’s daily behavior and movements, rather than finding a lack, Deligny discovered a “unique ability to interact” with his surroundings (p. 9). The movements or “wandering lines” (lignes d’erre) were mapped out by Deligny and his associates to better understand Janmari’s interactions with his immediate environment, completely free from language and social restrictions (p. 32). Unmistakably, one is able to fully appreciate how the same wandering lines went on to serve as inspiration for Gilles Deleuze and Guattari’s much celebrated “lines of flight” (lignes de fuite), elaborated as a revolutionary method.[1]

In agreement with Deligny throughout, Symons highlights how he did not place “the human being at the centre of psychiatry” and that according to him “there is no such thing as a conclusive definition of the human being at all” (p. 35). In contrast to Binswanger, who departs “from the assumption that his patients are like himself” and tries to recover what he perceives negatively as the patient’s temporary loss of self, Deligny recognizes that “autistic children are very different” and that it is “himself and his companions who lack something fundamental” (pp. 38–39). In Symons’s words, Deligny ultimately makes a “distinction between the human being/man (l’homme) and being-human (l’humain)” (p. 37).

In putting forward its original scope of exploring unrealized possibilities, the book also serves as a good introduction to the work of both protagonists, especially Deligny, because much of his work remains untranslated into English. Like Symons, one cannot help but wonder: what if Ellen West had been treated in Monoblet? Or what if Binswanger had remained committed to centering the human being in psychiatry? In this respect, Symons’s seamless writing beautifully foregrounds Deligny’s ingenuity and the inclusive humanity of his methods.

[1] Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. Brian Massumi (Minneapolis, 1987), p. 202.