The Empirical Phenomenological Method: Theoretical Foundation and Research Applications
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Phenomenology and Empirical Research
3. The Theory of Empirical Phenomenology
3.1. The Eidetic Essence and the Concrete Essence
3.2. Immediate Intuition and Subsequent Adumbrations
- -
- The principle of evidence, which requires that the process of inquiry remains faithful to the qualities that appear, and only to what appears, and therefore imposes on the researcher the need to speak of a thing ‘only within the limits in which it then presents itself’ (Husserl 2012, p. 43);
- -
- The principle of ulteriority, which requires us to search for the modes of the real that remain shadowed or veiled, since every being has a proper original way of transcending its appearance.
4. The Empirical Phenomenological Method
5. Applications in Empirical Research
5.1. The EPM in Healthcare Research
- a.
- Gain access to concrete singular data
- b.
- Collect a plurality of lived experiences
- c.
- Define the concrete singular essence of each lived experience
- d.
- Build classes of similar data and
- e.
- Formulate the first level of the extended essences
One way to order data is to categorise them, to elaborate concepts within which we can arrange data. Elaborating concepts is an essential epistemic action. This, however, carries the risk that the concept neutralises the other’s singularity. Conceptualising can exert a form of violence on the data, which, to be inserted in the concept, must abandon part of their singular givenness.
When I formulate descriptive and then conceptual labels, can I find words that do not strip the other’s saying of its otherness? Can I encounter their saying outside any a priori, any pre-structured hermeneutic asset? When I identify my excerpts, am I dismembering texts, grinding them inside pre-available hermeneutic grills? Or perhaps, by assigning labels to the quid of the text, do I manage not to lack respect for it?
- f.
- Build a hierarchy of essences
- g.
- Recover and describe the absolutely unique data
- h.
- Elaborate the descriptive theory
- i.
- Implement the principle of recursiveness
5.2. The EPM in Educational Research
- a.
- Gain access to concrete singular data
- b.
- Collect a plurality of lived experiences
- c.
- Define the concrete singular essence of each lived experience
- d.
- Build classes of similar data and
- e.
- Formulate the first level of the extended essences
- f.
- Build a hierarchy of essences
- g.
- Recover and describe the absolutely unique data
‘It is me and Sofi who play. I with the toy car, and she with the doll. If she does not scratch me, we feel very good’.
‘If you find some sees, do not go there because if you find some thorns and crocodiles and they eat you, and otherwise I come and care for you very much, and I love you so much’.
- h.
- Elaborate the descriptive theory
- i.
- Implement the principle of recursiveness
6. Discussion
7. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Heuristic Actions and Methodological Principles of EPM | ||
---|---|---|
Heuristic actions | (a) Gain access to concrete singular data | Determine how to collect data about the phenomenon whose essence is searched for, i.e., choose the most adequate instruments for recording participants’ lived experiences. |
(b) Collect a plurality of lived experiences | Involve a plurality of participants with experiences of the investigated phenomenon to collect different actualisations of it. | |
(c) Define the concrete singular essence of each lived experience | Describe the specific concrete qualities of each collected lived experience by creating a descriptive label for each collected datum. Make a list of the descriptive labels expressing the concrete singular essences of the collected lived experiences. | |
(d) Build classes of similar data | Start from the list of the descriptive labels and cluster the similar ones (each class includes descriptive labels expressing similar concrete singular essences). | |
(e) Formulate the first level of extended essences | Define with a concept (category label) the essence of each class of concrete singular essences, i.e., of each identified cluster of descriptive labels; this essence is defined as extended because it expresses qualities that belong to several collected lived experiences, i.e., to several variations of the investigated phenomenon. | |
(f) Build a hierarchy of essences | Search for similarities between the first level of extended essences, build classes of them—i.e., cluster the previously elaborated category labels—and define with a concept the essence of each class (macrocategory label). Repeat this operation until achieving the most general level of essence that can be attained through an empirical process. In this way, a hierarchy of essences—or “a graded series of essences” (Husserl 2012, p. 25)—is built, which includes the most concretely dense to the most extensively abstract essences found during the analysis process. Elaborate the final coding system, which—by including the labels, categories and macrocategories formulated—puts into evidence the hierarchical relationships among the individuated essences, ranging from the absolutely individual and concrete to the most shared and abstract. | |
(g) Recover and describe the absolutely unique data | Since not all data can be codified within a coding system, it is necessary to give value to the protruding (or outlying) data by commenting them in the final research report. | |
(h) Elaborate the descriptive theory | Describe the qualities of the investigated phenomenon, starting with the most extensive to the most concrete essences, and then also considering the absolutely unique data. | |
(i) Implement the principle of recursiveness | Continually return to the collected data and descriptive and conceptual labels formulated during heuristic actions c, e and f to verify the essential knowledge that is being built. | |
Methodological principles | First methodological principle (α) | Identify quantitatively significant variations of the phenomenon. |
Second methodological principle (β) | Carry out a detailed analysis of each lived experience to bring to light its concrete singular essence. | |
Third methodological principle (γ) | Reflectively supervise the cognitive processes underlying the heuristic actions. |
Meaningful Unit | Descriptive Label (Researcher 1) | Descriptive Label (Researcher 2) | Descriptive Label Agreed on |
---|---|---|---|
Rose came to the delivery room at two in the morning, not worried about disturbing anyone. With her German accent, which made her demands sound even more peremptory, she asked to be helped to give birth in the way she wanted. I think to myself how every case is different and, for this reason, hard to understand. | She questions/reflects on her actions: the sign of a ‘thinking presence’. | She questions/reflects on her actions: the sign of a ‘thinking presence’. | |
[…] | |||
I took her to the delivery room I thought most suitable for her. | She tries to find the most suitable environment. | She tries to find the most suitable environment. | |
[…] | |||
I wanted to isolate her as much as possible, or rather, I wanted to isolate myself as much as possible so as to assist her with the least possible interference. Rose wanted to be the absolute protagonist of the birth and did not want to be disturbed. She described the welcoming ritual she wanted for her baby: […] She would wrap him in a red cloth (so the baby wouldn’t notice the difference in the color of the new environment), and she would be the only one to touch him. | Accepting a paradox, acting ‘outside the box/norms’. She is receptive to the requests of the patient. She questions/reflects on her action: the sign of a ‘thinking presence’. | Accepting a paradox, acting ‘outside the box/norms’. |
Descriptive Label (Singular Concrete Essence) | Category Label (First-Level Extended Essence) |
---|---|
Keeping an eye on the patient | Paying attention |
Listening | |
Taking time to be with the patient | Dedicating time |
Taking time to offer a caring word | |
Being there in silence | |
Using time for unforeseen actions | |
Being capable of empathy | Understanding the other person |
Interpreting the patient’s experience |
Example of Data | Descriptive Label (Singular Concrete Essence) | Category Label (First-Level Extended Essence) | Macrocategory Label (Second-Level Extended Essence) |
---|---|---|---|
‘While carrying out my duties, I would now and then stop and look at her. Her look was always lost in space; she was curled up in bed under the sheets, as if she was in need of protection and tranquillity at such a difficult time…’. | Keeping an eye on the patient | Paying attention | Actions addressed to the patient |
‘Antonietta had just been transferred from General Medicine to the coronary unit … I went to administer her treatment to her and felt she needed to talk. I had left her till the end of my 10 p.m. rounds so that I could sit and listen to her more carefully and without being interrupted’. | Listening | ||
‘It was a frenetic day, and I was afraid I wouldn’t find a way of going to see her … but eventually, I made it. I found some time, entered the room, opened the windows and smiled. She smiled back’. | Taking time to be with the patient | Dedicating time | |
‘I found her on the bed by her mother; she was crying. I stayed there chatting with her for a long time, holding her hand’. | Taking time to offer a caring word | ||
‘Returning to the ward after a two-day break, I entered the room. She asked me to close the door and immediately burst into tears. She was desperate. I got closer, and she hugged me. I returned the hug and sat on the bed waiting for her to stop crying’. | Being there in silence | ||
‘One morning, she told me how she hated being without her make-up and nail polish; she felt uncomfortable being so scruffy. That afternoon, I went to a perfume shop and got her red polish, her favourite. I got her some nail varnish remover, too, just in case. Unfortunately, I never had a chance to give it to her, since during the night she went into a coma…’. | Spending time on unforeseen actions | ||
‘I feel her pain, this woman, this mother; she is trembling both in body and soul. I feel she’d like an answer that would relieve her anguish…’. | Being capable of empathy | Understanding the other person | |
‘Monica is a tracheotomised patient […] I feel challenged by her. What can I, as a nurse, do in circumstances that I cannot change? … I [tried to] think of an alternative that doesn’t pose a risk for Monica and at the same time meets her needs’. | Interpreting the patient’s experience | ||
‘Jacopo had fallen asleep. I put him in his crib and sat on the bed by his mother, searching for physical contact. I rested my hand on hers and spoke to her, trying to meet her red, swollen eyes…’. | Building a relationship with the patient through physical gestures | Trying to establish a relationship with the patient | |
‘One morning, I found her in tears. I sat on her bed, put down the drip I had in my hand and asked her to tell me what was troubling her … She started telling me her story’. | Building a relationship with the other through verbal gestures | ||
‘There’s a patient who needs to sleep with his pillow turned in a certain way. The other one has to be put behind his back, and since he wasn’t self-sufficient, we had to arrange his pillow for him at night. […] To understand the real needs of others, you have to stop and listen, and then try again and again until you see an improvement. Eventually, he told me, “Now I’m fine. I can sleep, thanks”. | Being receptive to the patient’s personal requests | Satisfying the patient’s needs | |
‘The patient had been subjected to palliative cures for two days. She wanted to wash her hair, but she was afraid of feeling pain, so I volunteered to help… and to my surprise, she accepted’. | Helping the patients care for their body | ||
‘The patient, treated for neoformation of the pharynx, expressed the need to go back to her habits after the operation—to wear a chador. I asked the doctor whether it would be possible for her to wear it on the recent surgery wounds. The doctor agreed, provided the rules of hygiene were complied with, and the patient started wearing her chador a few days after the operation’. | Helping the patients maintain their lifestyle | ||
‘You realise the pillow is warm, and you turn it over for her; the tissue that’s just been placed by her mouth is already wet with saliva, so you change it’. | Soothing pain | ||
‘While waiting for the cardiologists, I went to his room and calmed him down, explaining the procedure’. | Calming | Being concerned with the emotional dimension | |
‘I reassure her that all the nurses will be briefed on her case history and that, in the case of any doubt and/or misunderstandings, she can contact me at any time, even after being discharged’. | Reassuring | ||
‘I was present at other crucial moments in her rehabilitation, such as the first time she got her legs out of bed or took her first steps. I comforted and encouraged her’. | Encouraging | ||
‘During my first home visit, I thought Rosario looked neglected, just like the first time we met … I tried to put him at his ease. I didn’t want to force him to care for his appearance. I had to gain his trust first’. | Building confidence | ||
‘…I asked the patient to undress. She was embarrassed and replied that she was shy, so I offered to accompany her to the bathroom…’. | Preserving the patient’s dignity | Respecting the other person | |
‘Eventually, I tried to take off the medication delicately with cod liver oil—not a centimetre, not half a centimetre, but a millimetre at a time’. | Acting with delicacy | ||
‘When it was time to administer the infusion therapy to that patient, before entering his room, I would stand at the door for a fraction of a second, and that hiatus, however small, allowed his relatives to make room for me—an emotional space enabling the presence of another person to be accepted’. | Being present in a non-intrusive way | ||
‘So, on a number of occasions […] whenever I felt the timing was right (when Gabriella was alone or even when her daughter was there….), I started talking a little about this stoma’. | Adapting to the patient’s pace | ||
‘We decide to call the son of an intensive care patient whose condition was worsening. I let him sit down, and help him put on the gown and overshoes, and inform him that he’s been called specifically on his father’s request. He is anxious and worried and asks me to take him to his father’s bedside. I ask him if he wishes to call the chaplain and whether he wants to accompany his father in the most difficult moment of his life: death. […] I offer my support. Whatever his decision, I try to pose my questions in a discrete way. He stares at me and says, “Betty, I trust you, take me to him”’. | Impacting the relational context: improving the nurse–family relationship | Impacting the context to facilitate the act of caring | Attention to context |
‘Despite the inflexibility of visiting times, we had decided that his wife and children could enter whenever possible, and sometimes we even allowed them to watch a film together’. | Impacting the organisational context | ||
‘I expressed very clearly to the medical team what we thought about the way to manage a patient’s pain, speaking passionately about the many moments we had spent by that patient’s bed, and I asked for an anaesthesiology team to tackle the complexity of that pain’. | Building good relationships with colleagues and the medical team | ||
‘I didn’t know what to do. I seemed to have forgotten all my basic emergency and pharmacology knowledge learnt at school. […] I prepared it with shaking hands, in the hurry to stop a pain that I felt was excruciating, but also because I was making an important decision, since from that moment F. would never be lucid and conscious again. […] I heard my own voice talking to me, saying, “Come on, Chiara, go to him. Don’t behave like this, nothing bad will happen”’. | Thinking about what to do | Thinking | Invisible caring |
‘I had never had this experience before, and I was a bit worried about how to deal with her. It turned out that she was my age. I knew her by sight, and I’d never have imagined I would see her like that. Reading her file, I saw what they wrote about her in A&E [Accident and Emergency Department] and I formed a rather harsh opinion, which I instantly tried to remove, concentrating on her need to be understood at that moment’. | Examining predetermined ideas | ||
‘Immediately after the described event, I asked myself how it was it possible that a lung embolism hadn’t been taken into consideration […] I tried to work out what it was that had tipped me off, and it wasn’t easy to find the answer’. | Questioning one’s own actions | Reflecting on the experience | |
‘His head was under the pillow, but I heard him sobbing… Then, I don’t know what happened to me. I got scared. I didn’t know how to approach him. I was afraid the patient would react negatively, that he would send me away or perhaps I was afraid he would ask me for help that I could not offer him. He would ask for hope… and I couldn’t give him that, either. So, I didn’t do anything, I literally ran away. I pretended not to see, as if he’d been sleeping’. | Assessing one’s own actions | Dealing with one’s own emotional experience | |
‘I keep looking at Roberto and tell myself that I shouldn’t worry, that it is not professional to feel involved or moved by a patient. During my three years at university, I was taught to maintain detached empathy, which enables me to understand the patient’s needs, but no more than that. The truth is that I keep looking at Roberto. and I feel afraid’. | Listening to one’s own emotions | ||
‘What can I say now about the emptiness I felt at the news of her death? About the tears I shed on the day of her funeral? About how I hated myself and at the same time appreciated the fact of having strong feelings for a patient? I continuously wondered whether it was right for a nurse to get so close to a patient and asked myself, in my innermost thoughts, those that come and smother you suddenly at night, whether I had been a good nurse’. | Trying to handle one’s own emotions |
Conversation Excerpt | Descriptive Label (Singular Concrete Essence) |
---|---|
‘When I am ill, mum gives me a medicine that I always like’. | Medicating people |
‘I care for my cats as well. I hold them in my arms; I protect them’. | Protecting others |
Descriptive Label (Singular Concrete Essence) | N. | Category Label (First-Level Extended Essence) |
---|---|---|
Medicating people | 26 | Healing injuries |
Recalling a condition of discomfort | 12 | |
Allowing the other to do what they like | 5 | Making others feel well |
Promoting happiness | 4 | |
Offering reassurance | 2 |
Example of Data | Descriptive Label (Singular Concrete Essence) | N. | Category Label (First-Level Extended Essence) |
---|---|---|---|
‘Someone got injured…to care means that he went to the medical doctor’. | Medicating people | 26 | Healing injuries |
‘When I [sprained] my finger and my foot’. | Recalling a condition of discomfort | 12 | |
‘Care is…when I feed the fishes with Mariella’. | Feeding others | 18 | Preserving life |
‘I also care for my cats. I hold them in my arms; I shelter them’. | Protecting others | 5 | |
‘Because my dad always lets me play [with the Xbox], and then [if I waste the batteries] he lends them to me’. | Allowing the other to do what they like | 5 | Making others feel well |
‘He has made him happy’. | Promoting happiness | 4 | |
‘It is when I go to bed because my mum holds my hand until I get asleep’. | Offering reassurance | 2 | |
‘When there is a child who is a kid and thinks that toys get broken…and…they…they… he must take care with them and when they break…he repairs them’. | Respecting others | 14 | Practicing solicitude |
‘To care is when I care for my puppy, Bianca. I take her out with my dad or with uncle Vale’. | Paying attention to the needs of the other | 14 | |
‘I care for my dad. I give him many kisses’. | Making gestures of affection | 10 | Manifesting affection |
‘Care means “I love you”’. | Loving others | 2 |
Descriptive Labels (Singular Concrete Essences) | N. | Category Label (First-Level Extended Essence) |
---|---|---|
Feeding others:
| 18 | Preserve life |
Protecting others:
| 5 | |
Respect others:
| 14 | Show solicitude |
Pay attention to the needs of the other:
| 14 |
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Mortari, L.; Valbusa, F.; Ubbiali, M.; Bombieri, R. The Empirical Phenomenological Method: Theoretical Foundation and Research Applications. Soc. Sci. 2023, 12, 413. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci12070413
Mortari L, Valbusa F, Ubbiali M, Bombieri R. The Empirical Phenomenological Method: Theoretical Foundation and Research Applications. Social Sciences. 2023; 12(7):413. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci12070413
Chicago/Turabian StyleMortari, Luigina, Federica Valbusa, Marco Ubbiali, and Rosi Bombieri. 2023. "The Empirical Phenomenological Method: Theoretical Foundation and Research Applications" Social Sciences 12, no. 7: 413. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci12070413
APA StyleMortari, L., Valbusa, F., Ubbiali, M., & Bombieri, R. (2023). The Empirical Phenomenological Method: Theoretical Foundation and Research Applications. Social Sciences, 12(7), 413. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci12070413