Phenomenological Considerations In Psychology

Abstract

Methodological considerations
Phenomenology is a philosophy that began in 1900 with the publication of Logical Investigations by Edmund Husserl (1970). In that work Husserl introduced a novel way of examining and studying the phenomenon of consciousness. While Husserl laid out the main dimensions of the phenomenological movement, almost every follower of his deviated from him in some manner or other. Since there are a variety of phenomenological interpretation method have taken place within psychology. Husserl had said that the phenomenological method was descriptive based upon the intuition of the given. His famous student Heidegger, claimed that the true phenomenological method was interpretation. This caused a division among phenomenologists

With descriptive approaches one tries to describe the experiences being lived through very carefully and once the raw data has been obtained, a thorough phenomenological psychological analysis of the data takes place within the perspective of the phenomenological psychological reduction. Without the reduction, no claim that the analysis is phenomenological can be made today. Again, this special attitude shift involves the epoché, which means to set aside all knowledge not being directly presented to consciousness, and then to consider what is given not as actually existing but merely as something present to consciousness. The presented intuitions are then carefully described and analyzed. There are actually several forms or types of phenomenological reductions in Husserl and the method we are presenting in this chapter uses only one of them – the phenomenological psychological reduction. The psychological phenomenological method includes the same steps as the philosophical method (description, reduction and essence) but the steps are not followed in an identical way. Criteria related to scientific psycho-logical research (rather than that of philosophy) modify the implementation of the steps but the steps remain consistent within the entire context of

A meaning unit is determined whenever R, in a psychological perspective and mindful of the phenomenon being researched, experiences a transition in meaning when he or she re reads the description from the beginning. Slashes are placed in the description at appropriate places
Step 4 R, still within the scientific phenomenological reduction, then intuits and transforms P’s Life world expressions into expressions that highlight the psychological meanings lived by P. This requires the use of free imaginative variation as well as rendering implicit factors explicit
Step 5 Based upon the transformed meaning units, and still within the scientific phenomenological reduction, R uses the transformed meaning unit expressions as the basis for describing the psychological structure of the experience
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