The (un)bearable now

phenomenological reflections on psychological urgency and the overcoming of the biomedical understanding

Resumen

The present article aims to discuss the phenomenon of psychological urgency in its existential dimension, considering it not as a mere clinical condition but as an embodied and situated expression of experience in crisis. It departs from the understanding that psychological urgency, traditionally conceived by biomedical models as a critical manifestation of psychic suffering that demands immediate intervention, is often reduced to a set of symptoms and protocols, disregarding its existential complexity. The method consists of a theoretical-phenomenological analysis, grounded in authors such as Merleau-Ponty, Tatossian, and Fuchs, among other contemporary thinkers, articulating concepts such as lived temporality, the lived body, intersubjectivity, and Lebenswelt (the lifeworld). The paper is structured around three axes of discussion: (1) the conditions of possibility of psychological urgency, addressing it as a temporary shift in one’s mode of living and inhabiting the everyday world; (2) the displacement from a biomedical understanding to a phenomenological reading of the phenomenon, distinguishing between symptom and phenomenon as central categories in clinical practice; and (3) the ethical and clinical implications of an expanded mode of listening, one that privileges presence and co-responsiveness within the therapeutic encounter. The theoretical findings indicate that psychological urgency cannot be restricted to a pathological or symptom-based event but rather manifests a form of estrangement in the subjective experience of lived time, the body, and the relation to the Other, as well as to the shared world. It is concluded that phenomenological practice can welcome this sudden shift not as something to be contained but as an opening toward care and the reconstruction of meaning. Within this horizon, psychological urgency may be understood as an expression of existential vulnerability and as an opportunity for re-engagement with the world, calling for an ethics of presence and listening.