Critical Existential Psycho-Analysis Zero Point (an imprint of EPIS Press)

This volume is the second in a multi-volume series that explores and synthesizes the disparate discourses of existential phenomenology, psychoanalytic structuralism, and Critical Theory. This volume 2 examines existential phenomenology as an important critical foundation to existential psychoanalysis (both individual and cultural) by addressing the work of Dondeyne, Marcel, Merleau-Ponty, and Sartre. It also engages in dialectic with some of the critical thinking of David A. Boileau, former Chair of Philosophy at Loyola University. Through this examination, we can see how existential phenomenology can be used as a corrective to the distortions and sedimentations of the positivist forces in our scientific, social-political, aesthetic, intellectual, and spiritual discourse. In future volumes, Prof. Kevin Boileau will make parallel examinations of Critical Theory and psychoanalytic structuralism, as well as a comparative analysis of all and the beginnings of a new methodological approach for the examination of subjectivity and inter-subjectivity. By thinking about existential phenomenology we will be in a better position to understand the ratio and trajectory of various attempts to construct an existential psychoanalysis—as intellectual exercise, therapeutic method, and code for cultural transformation.

Dr. Kevin Boileau has been writing about the human condition for several years. All of his several theoretical and literary publications pursue an understanding of the vagaries, struggles, and foibles of the Western self and its multitude of narrative structures. Boileau is a philosopher and social critic, interested in our political condition and, as such, brings to bear the methodologies of psychoanalysis and phenomenology to his work. He writes in the style of French minimalism and is considered a radical existentialist though he might eschew the term. He is the author of several books and articles, a regular speaker at local colloquia, and a professor of psychoanalytic theory, phenomenology, and philosophy.