death as an acceptable outcome, as then she wouldn't have to worry anymore. She was often quoted by her psychiatrist, Ludwig Binswanger, explaining how her life felt like a prison that could be only made better by dying. To West, her life felt empty and dull, and filling her body with food only made her feel worse. Filling herself with food actually made her feel empty. It was even suggested that suicide by starvation became her life's purpose, whereas continuing to feed herself would be equal to committing murder on someone. This underlying issue of death obsession can be exemplified by other harmful behaviors that she engaged in. West reportedly did several dangerous things to invite illness and death, including riding horse dangerously, kissing children with scarlet fever, and standing outside naked after bathing. Her eventual death came after taking a lethal dose of poison, having spent a full day eating to satisfaction, reading poetry and writing. West's psychiatrist Binswanger was quoted as saying, "She looked as she had never looked in life - calm and happy and peaceful." He thought of her illness as a defense against anxieties which were heightened and overbalanced, but anxieties nonetheless. Existential psychology and humanistic psychology Ludwig Binswanger first diagnosed Ellen West using existential analysis. Using this school of thought showed that Ellen had bulimia nervosa and dreaded gaining weight. Existential analysis suggested that it is necessary to understand people in a deeper, more philosophical way rather than a strictly scientific way. The psychologist Rollo May exemplified this notion when he said that "Man is the being who can be conscious of, and therefore responsible for, his existence." In the arena of existential psychology, Binswanger concluded that her bulimia was the expression of an existential vacuum to fill up her needs. Binswanger thought that the initial diagnosis of manic-depressive psychosis was wrong because of a lack of manic phases. Also, her symptoms could be explained as normal rather than pathological, and Ellen West could be diagnosed with schizophrenia. Finally, in the view of therapeutic nihilism, Binswanger let her leave the Kreuzlingen clinic, and she later died because of drug overdose, with her husband Karl present and consenting. She legally protected him writing that he did not know what she was going to do. Carl Rogers, a humanistic psychologist who already in 1961 wrote a book in which dealt with Ellen West's case, felt upset