Phenomenology

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=Phenomenology: A field guide= (A Field Guide for the Qualitative Student)

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Carol Lane, Beth Newman, Sandy Schaeffer, & Anita Wells
 * __Author(s):__**


 * __Preface / Acknowledgements:__**

This self-study guide was produced by the authors as a project in a graduate class of Qualitative Research Methods (EDPR-8561) taught by Dr. Kakali Bhattacharya in the College of Education at the University of Memphis during the fall semester of 2006. It was done entirely using the collaborate 'wiki' method both as an experiment in new learning techniques for the students as well as a way to contribute to Dr. Bhattacharya's effort to develop a 'Wikipedia' style information resource on the internet devoted to the needs of qualitative researchers everywhere and in any discipline.

=Excerpts from Abbott and Costello’s classic routine= [online]

Costello: Look Abbott, if you’re the coach, you must know all the players. Abbott: I certainly do……Who’s on first, What’s on second, I Don’t Know is on third…. Costello: That’s what I want to find out. Abbott: I say Who’s on first, What’s on second, I Don’t Know’s on third……. Costello: Well then who’s on first? Abbott: Yes. Costello: I mean the fellow’s name. Abbott: Who. Costello: The guy on first. Abbott: Who. Costello: The guy playing… Abbott: Who is on first….. Costello: All I’m trying to find out is what’s the guys name on first base. Abbott: No. What is on second base. Costello: I’m not asking you who’s on second. Abbott: Who’s on first. Costello: One base at a time!

Sound confusing? Well, many people have the same puzzling emotional experience when they are first introduced to the qualitative method of phenomenology. Learning names of new scholars and the roles each played in founding phenomenology can be a bit overwhelming. Learning definitions of new words that are associated with a phenomenological framework can initially be confusing. However, the following discussion is intended to help novel researchers grasp a better understanding of the phenomelogical process with less ambiguity.

A vast majority of people are familiar with the ALL American sport of baseball. Many people can tell you the number of players on the field, the number of innings, the players’ positions on the field, and many of the major teams’ names. However, what people may not understand is the personal lived experience of players on the field. For example, no one but the pitcher can understand what it is like to actually stand on the pitcher’s mound and throw pitches and strikes over home plate. The pitcher alone knows the physical and emotional experience of being burdened with the “wins or losses” of the baseball games. Likewise, only an out-fielder can know what it is like to witness a high fly ball heading their way and the feeling associated with situating themselves in a way to snag the “out.” Only the players know the true experience of missing a fly ball or a line drive. It is lived experiences such as these that **__phenomenology__** is all about. The experts of life's experiences are the people who actually lived them.



Introduction to this guide:
Mankind has long maintained an interest in the cognitive and intrinsic experiences of human existence. Plato, in his Seventh Letter, wrote of this almost innate need to understand those internal forces that shape our thoughts. "In no way can it be uttered, as can other things, which one can learn. Rather, from out of a full, co-exetential dwelling with the thing itself - as when a spark, leaping from the fire, flares into light - so it happens, suddenly in the soul, there to grow, alone with itself."

Phenomenologists believe that understanding comes best through lived experience and that it is the cognitive inner experience that we, as researchers, should strive to understand and bring to light. Edmund Husserl (1917), considered by many to be the father of modern phenomenology, spoke thusly of the emerging field of phenomenological enquiry, "Most recently, the need for an utterly original philosophy has re-emerged, the need of a philosophy that--in contrast to the secondary productivity of renaissance philosophies--seeks by radically clarifying the sense and the motifs of philosophical problems to penetrate to that primal ground on whose basis those problems must find whatever solution is genuinely scientific. A new fundamental science, pure phenomenology, has developed within philosophy: This is a science of a thoroughly new type and endless scope. It is inferior in methodological rigor to none of the modern sciences. All philosophical disciplines are rooted in pure phenomenology, through whose development, and through it alone, they obtain their proper force. Philosophy is possible as a rigorous science at all only through pure phenomenology. It is of pure phenomenology I wish to speak: the intrinsic nature of its method and its subject matter that is invisible to naturally oriented points of view. Pure phenomenology claims to be the science of pure phenomena. This concept of the phenomenon, which was developed under various names as early as the eighteenth century without being clarified, is what we shall have to deal with first of all."

So, if you are an emerging qualitative researcher interested in studying the "essence" of human experience, you would most likely do well to consider phenomenology as a basis for you methodological inquiry. That is not to say that phenomenology is an end in itself to good methodology, but certainly it is a fundamental part of what makes qualitative research so meaningful, rich, and moving to its readers.


 * Who should use this?**

This information should be useful to students, researchers, journalists, academics, and any other individual or group with a beginning interest in qualitative research and phenomenology. Those who wish to learn more about the origins, methods, and principal figures associated with phenomenology will find these pages useful as an initiation into this field of inquiry.


 * Why should you read this?**

It is our hope that this information will prompt those who read it to dig deeper and further their knowledge of phenomenology and its methods. If you are developing an interest in qualitative research, you will find that understanding the principles of phenomenology is essential to the development of a sound personal research methodology. These pages are not intended to give you all of the background that you will eventually need, but only to get you started on the road to a successful relationship with your research.


 * How will it be helpful to you?**

This information should be helpful to you in many ways. It will present qualitative research and phenomenology from the perspective of graduate students who are somewhat familiar with its tenets, but who are also still engaged in the learning process and still becoming familiar with the hands-on experience of using phenomenological approaches in actual research. You, as a student/learner, will be able to participate vicariously in the steps we take to make phenomenology an important tool in our qualitative research toolbox.

= = =Phenomenology in a nutshell:=

In a nutshell, Phenomenology is the study of lived experience (Moustakas, 1994; Marshall & Rossman, 1995; Creswell, 1998; Crotty, 1998; Patton, 2002). “Phenomenology can be referred to either as the subject matter of inquiry or as the methodology of the study (Marshall & Rossman, 1995 p. 82).” Lived experience can consist of many different things. For example, Patton (2002) states that this experience can be emotions, culture, relationships, jobs, programs, marriage, etc. This sounds simple enough. However, the process of phenomenological research is quite in-depth and requires extensive investigation to provide the rigor and merit for a trustworthy analysis.

What is lived experience and how do we gain knowledge about it? Phenomenology calls for detailed descriptions of the phenomenon or experience under study (Patton, 2002). Lived experience is not something that can be measured or weighed. What is the experience and who experienced it are important facets of the investigation. Many times, a phenomenological researcher has personal interests or reasons for wanting to explore the lived experience (Moustakas, 1994). The researcher wants to know about the experience at a deeper level of meaning than what is presented at the conscious level (Patton, 2002).

Crotty (1998) suggests that to discover the true experience that is being studied, the researcher must “lay aside” (p. 78) any preceding understanding of the phenomenon. This is a conscious effort by the researcher to refrain from personal persuasion in the investigation. This suspension of prior knowledge (Moustakas, 1994) will allow a fresh look at the new meaning for the phenomenon that emerges through the phenomenological process.

Patton (2002) states that the only way the researcher can understand what others experience is to get close to the phenomenon. The way to do this is to go to the source or the individuals who actually experienced the phenomenon and become immersed in their shared information surrounding the experience. The researcher strives to get at the essence or invariant structure (Moustakas, 1994) of the experience. The focus is on “descriptions of what people experience and how it is that they experience what they experience” (Patton, 2002 p. 107). If the researcher gathers information from multiple individuals, then there can be shared essences or common meanings for the experience.

As data is gathered, the phenomenon is examined from many different angles and perspectives. The researcher studies the phenomenon and reflects on the hidden meaning (Moustakas, 1994). Over and over again the researcher studies and reflects; then studies and reflects again to gather truthful and a comprehensive description of the lived experience. Instead of putting numbers to words, the researcher provides rich textural descriptions of findings (Moustakas, 1994). Descriptions of the experience “illuminate” (p. 98) the underlying meanings of the phenomenon.

=A brief history of phenomenology:=


 * Origins -**

I wanted to post a few things I've looked at recently regarding the history of this philosophically based investigative method of phenomenology we're exploring.The scholarly work on phenomenology begins with the ideas of Edmund Husserl in the early 20th century. In an effort to break with the rigidity of exploring the world only by empirical means (which had become the exclusive way of investigating and discovering knowledge in those days, as well as ours), phenomenology emerged as an effort to return back to "the things themselves" (King, 2001) in an effort to discover the meaning and nature of things as they appear in their essence. As Husserl asserted, "Ultimately, all genuine, and in particular, all scientific knowledge, rests on inner evidence: as far as such evidence extends, the concept of knowledge extends also" (1970, p. 61). Of course, that idea was not easily accepted, and as Moustakas (1994) explained, such a radical approach to science was criticized and laughed at. So, Husserl stood alone in his world of phenomenological understanding. However, phenomenology, combining with the philosophical discussions on existentialism from Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty, extended into new fields of sociology, nursing, health sciences and education. It is the work of Giorgi (1975, 1985, 1994), Polkinghorne (1989), Moustakas (1994), Van Kamp (1959, 1966) and others that moved phenomenology into the discipline of psychology. The goal of phenomenological research is to engender a description of the essential structure of the experience being investigated. The finding in phenomenological research is called a "general structural description" (Polkinghorne, 1989).

Kvale (1996) posed that a phenomenological perspective involves a focus on the 'life world', and idea emerging from the ideas of Heidegger that includes an openness to the experiences of the participants, placing primacy on precise descriptions. The 'life world' is the world as it is experienced in everyday life with no prior explanations. Phenomenology studies participants' perspectives of their world and attempts to describe in detail the content of the participants' consciousness, to grasp the qualitative diversity of their experience, and to explicate their essential meaning. It is this intent of phenomenology that attracts the interest of qualitative researchers, because qualitative reserachers want to tap into multiple forms of knowledge that emerge from the lived experiences of human participants.

(1) Husserl (2) Heidegger


 * Scholars-**

Several scholars are associated with the phenomenology framework. Phenomenology represents an attempt to look at ‘things’ (phenomena) in our world and to develop some understanding of them, without the addition of our preconceived ideas and opinions. The philosophy of phenomenology was founded by Edmund Husserl in the early 20th century (Foster & Perkins, 2004). As Moustakas (1994) explained, there was a growing discontent with a science that was based exclusively on studies of material things and failed to take into account the experiencing person and the relationship between human consciousness and the objects that existed in the material world. The basic theme of phenomenology is ‘Back to the things themselves’. The ‘things’ refer to the phenomena that we encounter from our experience from being-in-the-world. Kvale (1996) explained that phenomenology is interested in describing what appears and the manner in which it appears. With the work of Martin Heidegger, phenomenological philosophy began to merge with the philosophy of existence. Existentialism, whose roots go back to Kierkegaard, can be defined by its major focus, existence. Existence involves, according to Kierkegaard, the way in which an individual experiences his or her being-in-the-world. The purpose of phenomenology is to develop understanding of an individual’s perspective regarding some experience. An attempt is made to describe in detail the content and structure of a conscious experience and to grasp the qualitative diversity of particular experiences, the goal being to explain the essential meanings of human experience.

A major idea involving phenomenological research is the idea of intentionality. This concept emerges from the work of Heidegger and Husserl and deals with the interdependence or fusion of the individual with his/her world. Husserl (1931, p.245) refers to intentionality as an indispensable concept which is the starting point of phenomenology. Natanson, writing in 1973, refers to intentionality as the “axis of phenomenology” (p.103). Therefore, an exploration of this concept may provide a more complete understanding of the goal of phenomenological research.

Crotty (2004) explained that because we are 'being-in-the-world', we cannot be described apart from our world, and our world cannot be described apart from us. Even though our enculturation process is rather substantial, phenomenology encourages us to set aside our ideas about some experience and learn from those who are experiencing the phenomena. To bracket our understandings and let the experience of phenomena speak to us first hand is the intent of phenomenological research.

Van Kaam (1969) offers a very good discussion on intentionality: “Human consciousness is a being together with the world, an encounter with, an orientation to, a directedness, and intentionality” (p.22). He goes on to explain that the original, spontaneous way of being-in-the-world is not the scientific mode; daily experience, he posits, is not scientific. Natural experience is spontaneous, multidimensional, unorganized, somewhat vague and undetermined, and it is in this natural mode that humans, for the most part, function and experience their lives.

It is suggested that the phenomenological concept of ‘intentionality’ and the existential idea of being-in-the-world suggest that meaning emerges from the interaction of subjects and objects: “Objectivity and subjectivity need to be brought together and held together indissolubly” (Crotty, 2004, p. 44). Human being means being-in-the-world, engaged in the world, engendering meaning from the interaction with the world. Intentionality represents an interdependence of subject and world.

Crotty (2004) explained that in the English-speaking world, phenomenology is generally seen as a study of people’s everyday experience. Data is collected and analyzed; in-depth interviews are carried out with the participants using open-ended questions; themes are engendered that emerge from the words of the participants; interpretations and meanings are engendered from the data. This approach to phenomenology presents a new understanding of phenomenology and, as suggested by Crotty, represents a very North American development.

In America, Van Kaam, Giorgi and Colazzi began expounding their methodologies of phenomenological research which were related to symbolic interactionism and other less critical approaches to experience than phenomenology was originally intended. However, phenomenology offers a form of inquiry that is rooted in immediate social experience and offers a methodology that requires a return to the experience at many points along the way. American phenomenology has been assimilated into the American intellectual tradition and represents a viable voice to gaining knowledge and understanding human experience.


 * Emergence of Phenomenology as a Methodology in Qualitative Research**

Bugental (1989) offered that it was Rollo May’s (1958) book, //Existence//, that caused many in psychology to reexamine their assumptions and open their conceptual frameworks to entertain a different paradigm. Up to that point, psychology had modeled its methodology on nineteenth century physical science, negating all significance of human subjectivity. Paul Tillich, the renown 20th century existential theologian summed the dilemma up most succiently: “Man resists objectification, and if man’s resistance is broken, man himself is broken” (195l, p. 18). Bugental asks “What does it mean to be concerned with experience as contrasted with behavior? It means to attend to the person as a subject rather than an object. It means to affirm that the human is a different order of phenomenon than any other. It means that the hope of an objective impersonal science is revealed as vain, partial and self-defeating” (p. x).

This key to the ‘more-than-objective’ nature of the human lies in the human’s reflexive awareness (Bugental, 1989). The human, when most truly human, is not only aware but aware of being aware. This awareness throws wild cards into the deck. Humans are, as far as we know, the only creatures to be aware of being aware. This is the amazing quality of our subjectivity. The question emerges, why negate that most pheonomenal quality of humankind? For, indeed, it is from the human gift of awareness (which Bugental posed may often seem a curse), that our capacities to have intentions, to reinterpret experience, to bring into being newness, and to create meaning emerge. We provide meaning to the universe, for we are meaning creators.

It is the attempt to capture human meaning that the methodology of phenomenological research is committed. Subjectivity, inner experiencing, and the essence of being human demand that we investigate experience, and, it is suggested, that this realm of investigation has been neglected far too long. It is probable that the best evidence of the human condition comes from the experiences and descriptions of the human individual. How else can we learn about the intentions, motivations and behavior of our kind? Bugental (1989) feels that the neglect of the subjective realm has resulted in our understanding of ourselves falling far behind our understanding of the physical world. It is to this failure that phenomenology attends. For, phenomenology is a form of inquiry that attempts to discover the meaning people place on their everyday experiences (deMarrais, 2004).

Polkinghorne (1989) asserted that the very process of gathering the data provides the opportunity for the researcher to learn about an experience and to form ideas about its structure. The gathered descriptions, “whether personal reflections by the researcher, reflections from subjects or previous descriptions, are converted to written form” (p. 50), which may result in hundreds of pages of written material that is analyzed in the data-analysis stage to tease out the essential descriptions of the experience.

The finding of the phenomenological research is a description of the essential structure of the experience (Polkinghorne, 1989). The essence of the experience emerges from interview data as participants describe in detail some experience they’ve lived. As deMarrais (2004) suggested, the purpose of phenomenological interviews is to “attain a first-person description of some specified domain of experience” (p.57). The researcher becomes the learner, and the participant is the one who has had the experience and considered the expert. Therefore, the interview becomes a conversation with the participant leading in the discussion of a particular experience in whatever way he/she chooses.

In phenomenological interviewing, according to Kvale (1983), the researcher asks short, descriptive questions that hopefully lead to long, detailed descriptions of the experience being studied. Also, there is an attempt made to establish equality between researcher and the participant by sharing interpretations and asking for the participants input to the interpretations and sharing the final manuscript.

Polkinghorne (1989) explained that natural scientific research attempts to produce the kind of knowledge that allows someone to predict and control the topic under investigation, while phenomenological research seeks understanding for its own sake and addresses the question what, not why. According to Polkinghorne, phenomenological research provides a deeper and clearer understanding of what it is like for someone to experience something. That knowledge allows us to be more sensitive and appreciative of those involved in the experience.

Phenomenological methods are devised in order to investigate another realm of reality, “the realm that comes into being at the intersection of consciousness and the world…human experience” (Polkinghorne, (1989, p. 58). It is the method of in-depth interviewing that provides the way into this realm and opens up an understanding of the meaning individuals attach to the experiences that emerge from their day-to-day interaction with their world, which helps us, as researchers, to better understand the human condition in all its diversity.

Nicolai Hartman, another scholar, understood philosophy to be rooted in ontology (Foster & Perkins, 2004). To justify realism, Hartmann used phenomenology to study the essence of being. Another scholar, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, worked to change the traditional dichotomy between the objective and subjective elements of human experience. Merleau-Ponty was interested in how language affects individuals’ perceptions of their world (Crotty, 1998; Foster & Perkins, 2004).

Martin Heidegger (Crotty, 1998) also used phenomenology to help comprehend the significance of being. According to Heidegger, society has a pre-determined way of perceiving human experience. Instead of taking information for granted, Heidegger encourages researchers to be open to new meaning of phenomenon. Therefore, similar to the previous scholars, Heidegger focused on the ontology or ‘being’ of the person utilized to gain accurate information of that person’s experience (Crotty, 1998).

= = == =The mechanics of a phenomenological study:=

For phenomenological research and analysis, Creswell provides an excellent summary in his guidebook entitled: //Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five Traditions// (1998) to help the new researcher get started. In that guide, data analysis for a //typical// phenomenological study is represented in the list of phases below:


 * **Phase** || **Activity** ||
 * Data managing || Create and organize files for data ||
 * Reading, memoing || Read through text, make margin notes, form initial codes ||
 * Describing || Describe the meaning of the experience for the researcher ||
 * Classifying || Find and list statements of meaning for individuals Group statements in the meaning units ||
 * Interpreting || Develop a textual description: “What happened?” Develop a structural description: “How was the phenomenon experienced?” Develop an overall description of the experience, the “essence” ||
 * Representing, visualizing || Present narration of the “essence” of the experience; use tables or figures of statements and meaning units ||

In addition to Creswell’s basic recommendations, a much larger body of work developed by many scholars of qualitative research exists that can be used to strengthen one’s qualitative analysis skills. Below is a brief review of selected scholars in the literature with respect to analysis of phenomenological data analysis.

John Creswell, in a guidebook for qualitative research and design (1998), provides an extremely practical survey of phenomenological analysis techniques. A good way to start is by applying Creswell’s “Data Analysis Spiral” in which he recommends a process of “…moving in analytical circles rather than using a fixed linear approach” (p. 142). The spiral technique is particularly helpful for managing and analyzing the large amounts of data associated with most phenomenological qualitative studies. This technique provides for alternating cycles of mechanical parsing and analysis and reflective consideration.

Moustakas

Another qualitative scholar of phenomenology discussed by Creswell and others is Moustakas who provides an excellent guidebook targeted specifically to phenomenological researchers (1994) in which he offers guidance on everything from designing the study, to selecting participants and collecting data. In particular, Moustakas presents and contrasts his own modifications of two existing analytical methods of analyzing phenomenological data: (1) the Kaam Method and (2) the Stevick-Colaizzi-Keen Method. While the two methods have different approaches, they both are designed to result in the researcher generating “…a composite textual-structural description of the meanings and essences of the experience” (p. 121). What I particularly like in both of these techniques is their approach of seeking the //epoche// (or essence of the experience) from within the full text of the participants’ own words as directly as possible. Both of these techniques as described by Moustakas allow the researcher to “listen” to the data - as much as to read it. This layered and constructive approach is highly adaptable to Creswell’s spiral approach.

In chapter three of Creswell’s book (1998, p. 141), he describes three sets of analytical strategies for qualitative analysis and representation organized around three key author teams: (1) Bogdan & Biklen, (2) Huberman & Miles, (3) Wolcott. Codes, categories and themes tend to find their way into many phenomenological studies – particularly if they include in-depth narrative interviews as a critical form of data to be analyszed. Many authors describe the use of the “coding” approach. One of those is described by Ryan and Bernard as described in Denzin & Lincoln’s book on qualitative research (Denzin & Lincoln, 2003). Ryan and Bernard do an excellent job of describing a wide variety of effective and thorough techniques for parsing large blocks of participant narrative. Among other things, they offer excellent and practical guidance on techniques for sampling, coding and finding themes in participant text. They also describe other approaches for analyzing free-flowing text including word counts, structural analysis, and language taxonomies.

Another important facet of phenomenological analysis is the need for the researcher to properly ‘bracket’ themselves with respect to the data. Thompson, Locander and Pollio (1989) provide a useful discussion on the concept of bracketing in which “…the researcher relates to respondent reflections in a non-dogmatic fashion and attempts to grasp, rather than impose meanings emerging from the dialog."

Further discussion on bracketing is provided by deMarrais (p. 58) in which she describes a process whereby the assistance of other researchers is used to conduct a "bracketing interview” of the primary researcher. In this way, she shows how the bracketing interview can help to better expose the assumptions and beliefs of the researcher in their study.

Useful Links:
http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/heidegge.htm

http://www.humanpsych.edu/Faculty_Pages/Moustakas.htm

http://www.philosophyprofessor.com/philosophers/edmund-husserl.php

http://www.husserlpage.com/

http://ehusserl.com/

http://qix.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/1/1/19

http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~polkingh/vita.html

http://www.iep.utm.edu/m/merleau.htm

http://www.phenomenologycenter.org/

http://www.phenomenology.org/

http://phenomenology.utk.edu/

http://www.ipjp.org/themes.html

http://www.phenomenologyonline.com/

=References:=

Begental, J. (1989). Foreward. In R. Valle, & S. Halling (Eds.), //Existential-phenomenological perspectives in psychology// (pp. ix-xi). New York: Plenum Press

Bhattacharya, K. (2006). Personal Conversation.

Creswell, J. W. (1998). //Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five traditions.// Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Crotty, M. (1998). //The foundations of social research.// Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

deMarrais, K. (2004). Qualitative interview studies: Learning thgrough experience. In K. deMarrais, & S. Lapan (Eds.), //Foundations for research// (pp. 54-68). Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum,.

Denzin, N. & Lincoln, Y. (2003). Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. . Foster, E., & Perkins, L. (2004). Methodology mini-lesson IDIT 7320: Phenomenology. Retrieved October, 16, 2005, from http://www.arches.uga.edu/~lperkins/edit7320/phenomenologymimilesson.htm

Giorgi, A. (1994). A phenomenological perspective on ceretain qualitative research methods. //Journal of Phenomenological Psychology,// (25), 190-220.

Giorgi, A. (1985). The phenomenological psychology of learning and the verbal learning tradition. In A. Giorgi (Ed.), //Phenomenology and psychological research// (pp. 23-85). Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press.

Giorgi, A., Fischer, C., & Murray, E. (1975). Duquesne studies in phenomenological psychology, II. In A. Giorgi, C. Fischer & E. Murray (Eds.), //Duwuesne studies in phenomenological psychology, II// (pp. 82-103)

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Husserl, E. (1931). //Ideas//(W. Gibson Trans.). London: George Allen & Unwin.

King, M. (2001). //A guide to heidegger's being and time//. New York: State University of New York Press.

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Marshall, C. & Rossman, G. B. (1995). //Designing qualitative research (2nd ed.).// Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

May, R., Angel E., & & Ellenberger, H. (Eds.). (1958). //Existence - A new dimension in psychiatry and psychology//. New York: Simon & Schuster.

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Polkinghorne, D. (1989). Phenomenological research methods. In R. Valle, & S. Halling (Eds.), //Existential-phenomenological perspectives in psychology// (pp. 41-60). New York: Plenum.

Thompson, C., Locander, W. and Pollio, H. (1989, September). Putting Consumer Experience Back into Consumer Research: The Philosophy and Method of Existential Phenonenology. //Journal of Consumer Reseach//. 16, 133-146.

Tillich, P. (1951). //Systematic theology//. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

van Kaam, A. (1969D). //Existential foundations of psychology//. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.

van Kaam, A. (1966). //Existential foundations of psychology//. Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press.

van Kaam, A. (1959). Phenomenal analysis: Exemplified by a study of the experience of "really feeling understood.". //Journal of Individual Psychology,// //15//, 66-72.

Who's on first? The text of Abbott & Costello's classic routine. [online] Retrieved November 20, 2006 from http://www.phoenix5.org/humor/WhoOnFirst.html