6
THE LOGIC OF A PHENOMENOLOGICAL METHODOLOGY
PERSPECTIVE: ANGULAR VIEW
In humanistic nursing practice theory we, Dr. Zderad and myself, propose that nursing practice when studied, like any other area studied, will only become available for human conceptualization if the study methods are appropriate to its nature. Therefore, the methodology presented in this chapter is relevant to humanistic nursing practice theory.
Embraced within this chapter is a methodology for studying nursing that evolved out of the process of my nursing practice. The logic of this method and of my process of nursing are one. It is not a method of another discipline superimposed on nursing. So this method did not force nursing or change nursing to have it mold or conform. As this method unfolded it arose from and in accord with nursing process. This methodology came into being only after years in which various attempts were made to get positivistic methodology to answer relevant nursing questions and to develop a professional scientific theory of nursing.
The method presented here was used initially to creatively conceptualize nursing constructs in 1967-68. The data for the development of the constructs "comfort" and "clinical" were gathered from my clinical nursing practice and while I was deeply engrossed in existential readings. The process or method used was not conceptualized until it was called for while writing my doctoral dissertation in 1968. It had then been used to study the clinical literary works of two psychiatric mental health nurses, Theresa G. Muller and Ruth Gilbert.[1] Its conceptualization at that time was rudimentary. Gradually it has been further conceptualized. "From a Philosophy of Nursing to a Method of {66} Nursology," an article published in Nursing Research in 1972, was my next attempt.[2] Graduate nursing students studied this article and repeated the process of the methodology in their studies of their clinical nursing data. Reflecting on this article and realizing how others had to study and struggle with it. I became aware that still only the bare bones of my thinking were presented. Further elaboration of this methodology was called forth to share it with the humanistic nursing practice theory course participants. Since 1970 I have delved into phenomenologists' writings and at this time can say that this process of studying nursing is a phenomenological method of nursology. Interesting to me is that the initiation of this method came when I first began to read the existentialist literature. Existentialism can be viewed as the fruits of phenomenological study. The process of this method has become clearer and clearer to me over time. Phenomenologically the process or method has grown out of the reality of the "thing itself" to be studied, in this case, clinical nursing practice.
This chapter then is the result of reflecting on these past efforts and is a conceptualization of this method as I understand it now.
The following quote is offered to support and validate the efforts put into conceptualizing this method. The philosopher of science Abraham Kaplan says of methodology:
"The aim of methodology … is to invite speculation from science and practicality from philosophy … to help us understand in the broadest possible terms, not the products of scientific inquiry, but the process itself."[3]
The above quotation expresses the spirit in which this presentation is offered. Positivistic science aims at objectivity and its results are viewed as scientific facts. Nursing practice has been understood by many as an implementation of such theoretical facts. Considering my and other nurses' implementation of such facts it is apparent that in these endeavors nurses come to know much about human existence.