A PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH
The method may be characterized generally as descriptive but it is not a simple cataloguing of qualities or counting of elements. Basically, it involves an openness to nursing phenomena, a spirit of receptivity, readiness for surprise, the courage to experience the unknown. Equally important is awareness of one's own perspective and of personal biases. The methodological process is subjective-objective and intuitive-analytic. Besides subjective knowing or personal experiencing of the phenomenon, rigorous analysis also is required. This being-with (subjective, intuitive knowing and experiencing) and looking at (objective analyzing) the phenomenon all at once sparks a creative synthesis, a conceptualization from which emanates insightful description.
More specifically, the method entails an intuitive grasp of the phenomenon, analytic examination of its occurrences, synthesis, and description. In actuality, as the method is carried out, one does not necessarily recognize or focus on these processes as distinct phases or steps. In the flow of the experience, at times, some seem to occur simultaneously or in oscillation. Bearing this in mind, the processes will be considered in more detail.
Intuitive Grasp of the Phenomenon
Phenomenology is grounded in experience. It values the raw data of immediate experience. ("To the things themselves," was the slogan that inspired and guided Husserl and his followers.) So this approach requires, in the first place, attitudes of openness and awareness. It involves learning to become conscious of spontaneous perceptions, or in other words, getting in touch with one's sensations and feelings. It means capturing prereflective experience, that is, becoming aware of one's immediate impression or response to reality before labeling, categorizing, or judging it.
In this kind of a state of readiness to receive what appears, a phenomenon may be grasped intuitively. It is as if a particular bit of reality, a happening, flashes impressively into one's awareness. The intensity of the experience and the absorption of one's attention in the phenomenon vary over a wide range. There may be only a fleeting recognition of a phenomenon accompanied by {80} a half-formulated thought or judgment, such as, "hmm, that's interesting," with immediate dismissal from or replacement of it by something else in one's consciousness. The impression may, of course, be stored in memory and pop out again at a later time. Or the phenomenon may strike on one's consciousness more forcefully causing further pondering and wonder. Or the impression of the phenomenon may be so startling that it fills one's consciousness to the point of pushing all else out; a person is momentarily "stopped in his tracks."
In the intuitive grasp, regardless of its intensity or duration, the phenomenon appears clear and distinct. The intuitive grasp is an insight into reality that bears the certainty of immediate experience. No discursive process intervenes; one simply knows the phenomenon as it is experienced. Furthermore, the intuitive grasp provides a kind of definite and whole understanding, a gestalt, that allows recognition of the phenomenon in other situations. So when the person is faced with another event he can say, "Yes, that is the phenomenon under consideration," or "No, that is not it."
In order to be open to the data of experience in using a phenomenological approach, one strives to eliminate "the a priori" (that which exists in his mind prior to and independent of the experience). This is done by attempting to "bracket" (hold in abeyance) theoretical presuppositions, interpretations, labels, categories, judgments, and so forth. Granted, a person cannot be completely perspectiveless. Man is an individual; he is a unique here and now person. So naturally, necessarily, he has an "angular" view for he experiences reality from the angle of his own particular "here" and his own particular "now." Or, stated differently, as a knowing, experiencing subject, each man must have some perspective of the phenomenon being experienced. However, by recognizing and considering the particular perspective from which he is experiencing it, a person may become more open to the thing itself.
Furthermore, this kind of openness to one's own perspective can be developed through deliberate practice. Several approaches may be used. To begin with, a person can develop the habit of recognizing and exposing his own biases. This could involve something as basic as stating the actual physical situation or circumstance in which the phenomenon was experienced. For example: the phenomenon could be something seen from above or below, at a distance or nearby; something heard in a quiet room or above the din of background noise; a patient's behavior in a large group or in a small group, with his family, with on particular nurse, with his doctor; a patient's response while being fed, bathed, monitored.
Beyond this unavoidable bias of the angle of perception, the nurse's experience of her lived world may be dulled by habituation. It is necessary to break through the tunnel vision of routine. For instance, a nurse new to a situation may notice a patient's response to her and remark about it to another nurse. The second nurse, to whom the patient's behavior is familiar, may respond, "Oh, he's done that for years." Often this is the end of the dialogue; it should be the beginning, for the duration of a phenomenon is not {81} equal to its description or meaning, but rather, is an indication of its significance.
The mystery of the commonplace is hidden by veils of the obvious. To recognize one's biases means to put one's beliefs, one's cherished notions, out on the table. A helpful aid in reflecting on and articulating an experience is the question, "What am I taking for granted?" Commonly used terms, such as, "psychiatric patient," "orthopedic patient," "oncology unit," "uncooperative," "emotional," "chronic," "terminal," "hopeless," "outpatient," "ambulatory," "visitors," "family," "doctor," "nurse," "administration," "front office" have an aura of connotations that may correspond to or differ greatly from the actual immediate experience. It may be a case where believing is seeing. The habit of premature labeling may close a person to the full savoring of experience.
Another means of increasing openness to one's own perspective is to consciously note whether the phenomenon is being experienced actively or passively. For example, the phenomenon may be the motion of changing a patient's position in bed. Both experience the motion, but it is a different experience for the nurse who actively moves the patient and for the patient who is moved passively. Or again, many studies of the phenomenon of empathy have been reported in the literature. Almost exclusively, these are descriptions of empathizing with someone; only rarely are they concerned with the experience of being empathized with. Yet obviously, the active and passive experiences of the phenomenon of empathy are different. The same holds true for touching and being touched, bathing and being bathed, feeding and being fed, supporting and being supported, reassuring and being reassured, and many other phenomena in nursing.
Similarly, awareness of one's perspective may be increased by consciously realizing whether the phenomenon is being viewed objectively or subjectively. Consider for example, phenomena such as pain, anxiety, sleep, restlessness, boredom. Seeing evidence of pain in another person is not the same as feeling pain within myself. Recognizing objective signs of anxiety in another person differs from the subjective experience of feeling anxious myself. Sleeping and observing someone sleeping are two different experiences. The same hold true for restlessness, boredom, and so forth.
In view of nursing's dialogical character it may be assumed that many phenomena of major concern would be intersubjective or transactional. It is important then for nurses, attempting to develop openness to their own perspectives, to consider whether the phenomenon involves two subjects and their between. Does the action go both ways? Are both persons calling and responding to each other simultaneously? Take the phenomenon of "timing" for example. The nurse's verbal response to a patient depends not only on her perception of her own here-and-now and his perception of his here-and-now but rather it also involves their perceptions of their shared here-and-now situation. The nursing world is filled with intersubjective phenomena such as, eye {82} contact, touch, silence. To describe these fully the nurse must be open to her perspective, the patient's perspective, and their between.
Analysis, Synthesis, and Description
After a nursing phenomenon is grasped intuitively, it is desirable to find as many instances of it as possible for the sake of description. Keeping the phenomenon in mind and reflecting on it from time to time, the nurse becomes more alert to its occurrence in her lived world. The phenomenon may be experienced directly. In which case, it is described and reflected on and descriptions, reflections, and questions are recorded. When she observes the phenomenon in others, the nurse may ask them to describe it and verify her own observations. Some nurses have involved other staff members in discovering and describing instances of the phenomenon being studied. Similarly, one becomes more open to descriptions of it in the literature—any literature—or in any form of human expression, for example, poetry, drama, art, science. As many descriptions of the phenomenon are gathered from as many angles as possible, these are the data to be analytically examined, synthesized, and described.
The three processes of analysis, synthesis, and description are so interrelated and so intertwined in reality that it is simpler to discuss techniques in relation to all three. Some techniques are equally useful in the analytic examination and the description of phenomena. In a sense, a person does both at once. And often, it is during this process of shifting back and forth, analyzing and describing an experience that synthesis occurs. A person gets a sudden insight, "everything falls into place," "it clicks." One gets a gestalt, a whole, not necessarily a whole in the sense of complete and entire, but a whole frame, form, or structure that allows for further developing and filling in of details.
There are many ways of going about the analysis and description. The following are some that have been found useful in the explication of nursing phenomena.
Comparing and contrasting instances of the phenomenon lead to the discovery of similarities and differences. For instance, in studying patients' crying it was found that their crying was with or without tears; loud or silent; expressing pain, anger, fear, sorrow. Or again, silence may be defined simply as absence of sound. But silence as experienced in the real nursing world has other characteristics. It may convey anger, fear, peacefulness, and so forth. It is these nuances or qualities of silence that are significant cues for the nursing dialogue. They could be brought to light by comparing and contrasting descriptions of silence.
Various instances of the phenomenon being studied may be examined to discover common elements. Characteristics or elements seen in one instance are sought in the others. For example, when descriptions of interpersonal empathy were scrutinized, it became evident that in all cases there were physiological, psychological, and social components. Examining experiences {83} of reassurance revealed they had elements such as empathy, sympathy, reality orientation, feelings of hope and comfort.
One may determine which elements are essential to the phenomenon by imaginative variation, that is, by trying to imagine the phenomenon without a particular element. For instance, reassurance without empathy or sympathy would be false reassurance or, in other words, would not reassure.
The elements of the phenomenon can be studied to determine how they are interrelated. One may ask, is there a priority in time? Does one element develop from another? Consider the phenomenon of reassurance; does empathy precede sympathy? Or, to take another example, in the empathic experience, an openness to the other and an imaginative projection into his place lead to the vicarious experiencing of his situation.
For further clarification of its distinctive qualities the phenomenon may be related to and distinguished from other similar phenomena. For example, empathy is similar to and also different from identification, projection, compassion, sympathy, love, and encounter.
By considering what it has in common with other phenomena, the phenomenon being described may be classified as being subsumed in a broader category. Thus, empathy is a human response, a coalescent movement, a form of relating.
The phenomenon may be described by selecting its central or decisive characteristics and abstracting its accidentals. For instance, interpersonal empathy always involves movement into another's perspective and as a form of movement it has directions, dimensions, and degrees. It can occur between persons of difference age, education, experience, sex; these latter characteristics are accidental.
Some descriptions make use of negation. A phenomenon cannot be described completely by negation but it may be clarified to some extent by saying what it is not. For instance, empathy is not sympathy; it is not projection; it is not identification.
Analogy may be used to promote analytic examination and description. This involves a comparison based on partial similarity between like features of two things. For example, the movement of empathy is like the currents in the sea; the heart is like a pump. The advantage of using analogy is that the comparison raises questions about the nature of the phenomenon under consideration. However, since the similarity between the analogues is always partial, one must guard against overextending the comparison to unwarranted conclusions. The description must always be consonant with the phenomenon as it occurs in reality.
The use of a metaphor also may enhance description and analysis. A metaphor suggests comparison of the phenomenon with another by the nonliteral application of a word. For example, "the between is a secret place." The use of metaphor may be criticized in regard to its lack of precision. On the other hand, there are some (for example, Marcel, Buber) who hold that the intersubjective realm can be described only metaphorically because it is {84} beyond the level of objectivity. And to attempt to describe intersubjective phenomena in precise terms related to the physical world would tend to distort rather than clarify. Many of the nursing phenomena requiring description occur within the intersubjective realm. Metaphors could cast some light on these.