"The task and goal of genogram work is to reconstruct the social background of a patient over three generations. How can such a procedure be used in psychiatry as a field of therapeutic action? After discussing the basics of phenomenology, the self and the concept of “being-in-the-world” of the psychiatrist Ludwig Binswanger, Bruno Hildenbrand uses the case of a patient diagnosed as schizophrenic to show how the philosophical positions described and those over three generations Developed family history promote understanding of the case problem and how interdependencies between a disorder and a family context can be explored. Notes on therapeutic approaches based on the understanding of the case to be gained in this way round off the volume. "