Investigating modes of being in the world
an introduction to Phenomenologically grounded qualitative research
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37067/rpfc.v15i2.1301Keywords:
Phenomenology, Applied phenomenology, Qualitative research, Qualitative methods, HeideggerAbstract
In this article, we develop a new approach to integrating philosophical phenomenology with qualitative research. The approach uses phenomenology’s concepts, namely existentials, rather than methods such as the epoché or reductions. We here introduce the approach to both philosophers and qualitative researchers, as we believe that these studies are best conducted through interdisciplinary collaboration. In section 1, we review the debate over phenomenology’s role in qualitative research and argue that qualitative theorists have not taken full advantage of what philosophical phenomenology has to offer, thus motivating the need for new approaches. In section 2, we introduce our alternative approach, which we call Phenomenologically Grounded Qualitative Research (PGQR). Drawing parallels with phenomenology’s applications in the cognitive sciences, we explain how phenomenological grounding can be used to conceptually front-load a qualitative study, establishing an explicit focus on one or more structures of human existence, or of our being in the world. In section 3, we illustrate this approach with an example of a qualitative study carried out by one of the authors: a study of the existential impact of early parental bereavement. In section 4, we clarify the kind of knowledge that phenomenologically grounded studies generate and how it may be integrated with existing approaches.
Downloads
References
Aho, J., & Aho, K. (2009). Body matters: A phenomenology of sickness, disease, and illness. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, 5th edition: DSM-5. Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Publishing. [N. do T.: Foi usada a versão brasileira para a citação encontrada na nota número 13: American Psychiatric Association. (2014). Manual Diagnóstico e Estatístico de Transtornos Mentais - DSM-5. Porto Alegre: Artmed.]
Ashworth, P. (2003). An approach to phenomenological psychology: The contingencies of the Lifeworld. Journal of Phenomenological Psychology, 34(2), 145–156.
Ashworth, P. (2016). The Lifeworld–enriching qualitative evidence. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 13(1), 20–32.
Barthes, R. (2010). Mourning diary. New York, NY: Hill and Wang.
Boerner, K., Mancini, A. D., & Bonanno, G. (2013). On the nature and prevalence of uncomplicated and complicated patterns of grief. In M. Stroebe, H. Schut, & J. van den Bout (Eds.), Complicated grief: Scientific foundations for health care professionals (pp. 55–67). New York, NY: Routledge.
Braddock, G. (2001). Beyond reflection in naturalized phenomenology. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 8(11), 3–16.
Brinkmann, S., & Kvale, S. (2015). Interviews: Learning the craft of qualitative research interviewing. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Carel, H. (2013). Bodily doubt. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 20(7–8), 178–197.
Charmaz, K. (2014). Constructing grounded theory (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Colaizzi, P. F. (1978). Psychological research as the phenomenologist views it. In R. S. Valle & M. King (Eds.), Existential-phenomenological alternatives for psychology (pp. 48–71). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Coleman, A. M. (2008). A dictionary of psychology. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Dahlberg, K., Dahlberg, H., & Nystrom, M. (2008). Reflective lifeworld research (2nd ed.). Lund, Sweden: Studentlitteratur.
Dahlberg, K., Todres, L., & Galvin, K. (2009). Lifeworld-led healthcare is more than patient-led care: An existential view of well-being. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, 12(3), 265–271.
Englander, M. (2012). The interview: Data collection in descriptive phenomenological human scientific research. Journal of Phenomenological Psychology, 43(1), 13–35.
Englander, M. (2020). Phenomenological psychological interviewing. The Humanistic Psychologist, 48(1), 54–73. doi:10.1037/hum0000144
Fernandez, A. V. (2017). The subject matter of phenomenological research: Existentials, modes and prejudices. Synthese, 194(9), 3543–3562.
Fernandez, A. V. (2018). Beyond the ontological difference: Heidegger, Binswanger, and the future of existential analysis. In K. Aho (Ed.), Existential medicine: Essays on health and illness (pp. 27–42). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield International.
Fernandez, A. V., & Køster, A. (2019). On the subject matter of phenomenological psychopathology. In G. Stanghellini, M. Broome, A. V. Fernandez, P. Fusar-Poli, A. Raballo, & R. Rosfort (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of phenomenological psychopathology (pp. 191–204). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Fuchs, T. (2018). Presence in absence: The ambiguous phenomenology of grief. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 17(1), 43–63.
Gallagher, S. (2003). Phenomenology and experimental design: Toward a phenomenologically enlightened experimental science. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 10(9–10), 85–99.
Gallagher, S. (2012). Taking stock of phenomenology futures. The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 50(2), 304–318.
Gallagher, S., & Francesconi, D. (2012). Teaching phenomenology to qualitative researchers, cognitive scientists, and phenomenologists. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology, 12(Suppl. 3), 1–10.
Gallagher, S., & Zahavi, D. (2012). The phenomenological mind (2nd ed.). London, UK: Routledge.
Giorgi, A. (2009). The descriptive phenomenological method in psychology: A modified Husserlian approach. Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press.
Giorgi, A. (2010). Phenomenology and the practice of science. Existential Analysis, 21(1), 3–22.
Giorgi, A. (2011). IPA and science: A response to Jonathan Smith. Journal of Phenomenological Psychology, 42(2), 195–216.
Goldie, P. (2002). The emotions: A philosophical guide. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.
Heidegger, M. (2012). Ser e Tempo. Tradução de Fausto Castilho. Campinas, SP; Petrópolis, RJ: Unicamp; Vozes,. edição bilíngue. (Publicado originalmente em 1927)
Heidegger, M. (2001a). The fundamental concepts of metaphysics: World, finitude, solitude (W. McNeill & N. Walker, Trans.). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Heidegger, M. (2001b). Zollikon seminars: Protocols—Conversations—Letters (F. Mayr & R. Askay, Trans.). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. (Original work published 1987)
Høffding, S., & Martiny, K. (2016). Framing a phenomenological interview: What, why and how. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 15(4), 539–564.
Køster, A. (2017a). Narrative and embodiment – A scalar approach. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 16(5), 893–908.
Køster, A. (2017b). Narrative self-appropriation: Embodiment, alienness, and personal responsibility in the context of borderline personality disorder. Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics, 38(6), 465–482.
Køster, A. (2019). Lidelsen i tabet: Fænomenologiske betragtninger over tabserfaringens affektive dybde. Psyke & Logos, 40, 38–60.
Køster, A. (2020a). Bereavement and the meaning of profound feelings of emptiness: An existential-phenomenological analysis. In C. Tewes & G. Stanghellini (Eds.), Time and body: Phenomenological and psychopathological approaches (pp. 125–143). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Køster, A. (2020b). Longing for concreteness: How body memory matters to continuing bonds. Mortality, 25(4), 389–401.
Køster, A. (2021). The felt sense of the other: Contours of a sensorium. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 20(1), 57–73.
Langdridge, D. (2007). Phenomenological psychology: Theory, research and method. Harlow, UK: Pearson Education.
Lindemann, E. (1944). Symptomatology and management of acute grief. American Journal of Psychiatry, 101(2), 141–148.
Merleau-Ponty, M. ([1945] 1999). Fenomenologia da percepção. Tradução Carlos Alberto Ribeiro de Moura, 2 ed. São Paulo: Martins Fontes.
Morley, J. (2019). Phenomenology in nursing studies: New perspectives—Commentary. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 93, 163–167.
Nancy, J.-L., & Hanson, S. (2002). L’intrus. CR: The New Centennial Review, 2(3), 1–14.
O’Connor, M.-F., Wellisch, D. K., Stanton, A. L., Eisenberger, N. I., Irwin, M. R., & Lieberman, M. D. (2008). Craving love? Enduring grief activates brain’s reward center. NeuroImage, 42(2), 969–972.
Parkes, C. M., & Prigerson, H. G. (2013). Bereavement: Studies of grief in adult life. New York, NY: Routledge.
Petitmengin, C. (2006). Describing one’s subjective experience in the second person: An interview method for the science of consciousness. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 5(3–4), 229–269.
Petitmengin, C., Baulac, M., & Navarro, V. (2006). Seizure anticipation: Are neurophenomenological approaches able to detect preictal symptoms? Epilepsy & Behavior, 9(2), 298–306.
Petitmengin, C., Remillieux, A., & Valenzuela-Moguillansky, C. (2019). Discovering the structures of lived experience. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 18, 691–730.
Ratcliffe, M. (2008). Feelings of being: Phenomenology, psychiatry and the sense of reality. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Ratcliffe, M. (2017). Grief and the unity of emotion. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 41(1), 154–174.
Ratcliffe, M. (2020). Sensed presence without sensory qualities: A phenomenological study of bereavement hallucinations. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences. Advance online publication. doi:10.1007/s11097-020-09666-2
Slatman, J. (2016). Is it possible to “incorporate” a scar? Revisiting a basic concept in phenomenology. Human Studies, 39(3), 347–363.
Slatman, J., Halsema, A., & Meershoek, A. (2016). Responding to scars after breast surgery. Qualitative Health Research, 26(12), 1614–1626.
Smith, J. A. (2010). Interpretative phenomenological analysis: A reply to Amedeo Giorgi. Existential Analysis, 21(2), 186–193.
Smith, J. A. (2018). “Yes it is phenomenological”: A reply to Max van Manen’s critique of interpretative phenomenological analysis. Qualitative Health Research, 28(12), 1955–1958.
Smith, J. A., Flowers, P., & Larkin, M. (2009). Interpretative phenomenological analysis: Theory, method and research. London, UK: Sage.
Stanghellini, G., & Rosfort, R. (2013). Borderline depression: A desperate vitality. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 20(7–8), 153–177.
Stolorow, R. D. (2011). World, affectivity, trauma: Heidegger and post-Cartesian psychoanalysis. New York, NY: Routledge.
Stolorow, R. D. (2019). A phenomenological-contextual, existential, and ethical perspective on emotional trauma. In G. Stanghellini, M. Broome, A. V. Fernandez, P. Fusar-Poli, A. Raballo, & R. Rosfort (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of phenomenological psychopathology. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198803157.013.85
Todres, L., Galvin, K., & Dahlberg, K. (2007). Lifeworld-led healthcare: Revisiting a humanising philosophy that integrates emerging trends. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, 10(1), 53–63.
Todres, L., Galvin, K. T., & Holloway, I. (2009). The humanization of healthcare: A value framework for qualitative research. International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-Being, 4(2), 68–77.
Toombs, S. K. (1995). The lived experience of disability. Human Studies, 18(1), 9–23.
van Manen, M. (1990). Researching lived experience: Human science for an action sensitive pedagogy. London, Ontario, Canada: Althouse Press.
van Manen, M. (2016). Phenomenology of practice: Meaning-giving methods in phenomenological research and writing. New York, NY: Routledge.
van Manen, M. (2017). But is it phenomenology? Qualitative Health Research, 27(6), 775–779.
van Manen, M. (2018). Rebuttal rejoinder: Present IPA for what it is—Interpretative psychological analysis. Qualitative Health Research, 28(12), 1959–1968.
van Manen, M. (2019). Rebuttal: Doing phenomenology on the things. Qualitative Health Research, 29(6), 908–925.
Young, I. M. (1980). Throwing like a girl: A phenomenology of feminine body comportment motility and spatiality. Human Studies, 3(1), 137–156.
Zahavi, D. (2019). Forthcoming. ‘Applied phenomenology: Why it is safe to ignore the Epoché’. Continental Philosophy Review. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-019-09463-y.
Zahavi, D. (2018). Phenomenology: The basics. New York: Routledge.
Zahavi, D. (2020). The practice of phenomenology: The case of max van Manen. Nursing Philosophy, 21(2), e12276. https://doi.org/10.1111/nup.12276.
Zahavi, D., & Martiny, K. M. M. (2019). Phenomenology in nursing studies: New perspectives. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 93, 155–162.
Downloads
Published
Versions
- 2026-08-08 (2)
- 2026-08-08 (1)
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 André Domenici de Alencar; Allan Køster, Anthony Vincent Fernandez; Gabriel Engel Becher, Marcelo Vieira Lopes
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
The authors retain unrestricted copyright and must indicate the initial publication in this journal in case of any subsequent publication of their work.
