Phenomenological-Hermeneutic Method: From Research in Philosophy to Psychology Research

Método Fenomenológico-Hermenéutico: De la Investigación en Filosofía a la Investigación en Psicología

Método Fenomenológico-Hermenêutico: Das Investigações em Filosofia às Pesquisas em Psicologia

Abstract

In this study, we built a theoretical text aimed to clarify the relationship between philosophy and psychology, and along this path, proposed a method called phenomenological-hermeneutic. Firstly, we show how authors as Giorgi and Sousa and Castro and Gomes define this relationship. Then, we demonstrate Feijoo’s proposal, who uses Heidegger’s phenomenological-hermeneutic to undertake research in Psychology. We highlight the three moments used by the philosopher Heidegger in his investigations: reconstruction, phenomenological destruction, and construction. Then we show how these three moments together with the propositions of phenomenology: reduction and suspension; monitoring of the sand-time dynamics of the phenomenon; and description and explanation of the experience; it can lead us towards achieving the overall structure of experience. We intend to make arguments that point out that the appropriation of the phenomenological-hermeneutic method brings contributions to the investigations in Psychology.

Keywords:
qualitative research; phenomenology; hermeneutics; philosophy; psychology

Resumen

En este estudio construimos un texto teórico cuyo el objetivo es aclarar las relaciones entre Filosofía y Psicología y, por ese camino, proponer un método llamado de método fenomenológico-hermenéutico en las investigaciones psicológicas. Primero, mostramos cómo hacen esta transposición los estudiosos Giorgi y Sousa y Castro y Gomes. Y, después, presentamos la propuesta de Feijoo quien utiliza el método fenomenológico-hermenéutico de Heidegger en sus investigaciones en Psicología. Destacamos los tres momentos utilizados por el filósofo Heidegger en sus investigaciones: reconstrucción, destrucción fenomenológica y construcción. En continuación, mostramos cómo esos tres momentos junto con las proposiciones de la fenomenología, reducción y suspensión, seguimiento de la dinámica espacio-tiempo del fenómeno y, finalmente, descripción y explicación de la experiencia, nos llevan a lograr la estructura general de la experiencia. En conclusión, daremos argumentos que señalen que la apropiación o traslado del método fenomenológico-hermenéutico llevan aportes a las investigaciones en Psicología.

Palabras clave:
investigación cualitativa; fenomenología; hermenéutica; filosofía; psicología

Resumo

Neste estudo, construímos um texto téórico cujo o objetivo é esclarecer a relação entre filosofia e psicologia e, neste caminho, propor um metodo denominado fenomenológico-hermenêutico. Primeiramente, mostramos o modo como estudiosos como Giorgi e Sousa e Castro e Gomes realizam essa transposição. Por fim, apresentamos a proposta de Feijoo, que se apropria do método fenomenológico-hermenêutico de Heidegger, para a realização de suas pesquisas em Psicologia. O método proposto por Feijoo considera os três momentos utilizados pelo filósofo em sua hermenêutica: reconstrução, destruição fenomenológica e construção e, junta a eles as proposições da fenomenologia: redução e suspensão, acompanhamento da dinâmica espaço-temporal do fenômeno e, por fim, descrição e explicitação da experiência que nos encaminham no sentido de alcançar a estrutura geral da experiência. Concluimos que a apropriação ou transposição do método fenomenológico e do fenomenologico-hermenêutico, próprios da filosofia, trazem valiosas contribuições nas pesquisas em Psicologia.

Palavras-chave:
pesquisa qualitativa; fenomenologia; hermenêutica; filosofia; psicologia

In this study, we constructed a theoretical text whose objective is to clarify the relationship between philosophy and psychology and, along this path, propose a method called phenomenological-hermeneutic. We know that to investigate a topic in Psychology, we increasingly require a methodology fully defined in its limits and effectiveness. Psychology occupies a hybrid place that dialogues both with scientific methods of a quantitative nature as well as with human sciences that operate with elements of a qualitative nature. The plurality of this science is, on the one hand, its richness; on the other hand, it constitutes its vulnerability.

Research in Psychology, when resorting to experiments that can be quantifiable, presents no problem since the numerical attribution to psychic facts allows sophisticated statistical operations that scientists widely accept. Questions arise within the scope of this knowledge when what is being investigated is not capable of numerical measurement. We then need to find another way to make the investigations credible. We can then turn to Philosophy, more specifically Husserl’s phenomenology and Heidegger’s ontology, who, in their analyses based on logical principles, achieve the rigor with which we reach effective conclusions within the scope of psychological research.

The rigor with which Husserl’s phenomenology is demonstrated in his attempt to present an alternative to the theory of knowledge that, since the 19^th century, has been within the scope of neo-Kantianism. Husserl argues that the problem with this theory is that it remains in the idea of the subject of knowledge, i.e., there is a psychologism. Husserl’s phenomenology has as its logical assumption the idea of apodictic knowledge, which in a logical operation is found in the phenomenal soil of experience already endowed with meaning. In this aspect, phenomenology would be within the competence of logic, not psychologism. Husserl’s first intuition is that pure experiences are phenomenological.

Still in dialogue with neo-Kantianism, Heidegger is concerned with overcoming empirical understanding, intending to seek meaning in experience. He wants to understand the meaning of things without the empirical trace. The philosopher leaves the notion of factual and addresses the idea of facticity, trying to show that factual life occurs as it gives itself. We find in this notion what came to be called existence. With the hermeneutics of facticity, Heidegger relies on the terrain in which meanings occur. For the philosopher, the experience of meaning in the world is apprehended phenomenologically, in a field of understanding factual life in which meanings are given ontologically.

By resorting to Philosophy, would we be appropriating or unduly transposing research methods in Philosophy into Psychology? Would it be effective to use such methods in psychological research?

Bastos (2017) recalls that, in Brazil, the pioneers of the phenomenological method were Joel Martins and Maria Aparecida Bicudo. In a publication dated 1989, these authors defend the transposition of phenomenological assumptions to research in Psychology to achieve the theoretical and methodological foundations of qualitative research with phenomenological bases. In this way, they propose, for data analysis, to look for the structure of the always-situated phenomenon. They emphasize that the researcher must eidetically thematize phenomena as they are lived, experienced, and consciously perceived.

Analyzing the health research in Brazil, R. V. Silva and Oliveira (2018) concluded that the phenomenological method, based on Schultz and Heidegger, is widely used in intervention research by Nursing professionals when investigating their patients’ narratives. R. V. Silva and Oliveira refer to the transposition of assumptions from philosophy to Nursing research. Castro (2012) highlights that Alfred Schultz had already carried out this transposition to research in Sociology. Almeida et al. (2018) investigate, using the phenomenological method, from a descriptive perspective, the psychosocial aspects of suicide in older people to think about prevention proposals. Freitas (2018) develops research-action focused on psychological clinics in mourning situations. Roberto et al. (2021) argue about the need, through this research, to plan public health policies aimed at prevention and expand service centers. Tombolato and Santos (2020) argue that an interpretative phenomenological analysis is anchored in phenomenology, hermeneutics, and idiography. From a cognitivist perspective, Ruckert et al. (2019) highlight the importance of studies that address postvention practices. Finally, investigations based on phenomenology show their effectiveness and are, in most cases, research-intervention with care, prevention, and postvention purposes.

With the denominations of transposition or appropriation used by researchers who use phenomenological bases for their research, we are faced with a first question: Is it possible to make such movements from one area of knowledge to another?

Researchers on psychological topics, such as Castro and Gomes (2011), Feijoo (2021), and Giorgi and Sousa (2010), show that movement from one area to another is possible. They refer to these methods as a transposition or appropriation of Philosophy to Psychology. These scholars show us that phenomenological and hermeneutic methods have their origins in Philosophy and are included in the list of qualitative research methods in Psychology. Therefore, they effectively point to the possibility of appropriation or transposition. These scholars warn, however, that to transpose or appropriate a method from Philosophy to Psychology, we must strictly follow the methodological requirements of Philosophy itself and not forget to consider the methodological requirements of Psychology as a human science.

Feijoo (2018) dialogues with Philosophy in that she criticizes how the notion of method gains such radicalization that it starts to be seen as anticipation and, therefore, requires a particular and straight path to achieve results. This positioning obscures the most original notion of metà-hodós, as the path one takes when walking. The phenomenological understanding of the problem will indicate the method to follow. With this, the opposition between qualitative and quantitative is overcome.

Edmund Husserl (1901/2006a) showed us how the phenomenological method was constructed for his investigations into consciousness. He recommends that, when using the phenomenological method, some procedures must be followed precisely: adopt the phenomenological attitude, find an interesting phenomenon to study, use the process of free variation of imagination, and carefully describe the essence of the discovery.

In his investigation into fundamental ontology, Heidegger (1927/1998) resorts to Husserl’s phenomenology but points to the insufficiency of this method and adds the hermeneutic perspective to phenomenology. In Heidegger’s proposal, we find a path of investigation in Psychology. As used by Heidegger in his fundamental ontology, the phenomenological-hermeneutic method constituted a methodological path, which some scholars and researchers of the human psyche adapted to their investigations in Psychology.

Heidegger proceeded in his investigations into the meaning of human existence through what he called phenomenology-hermeneutics in the following moments: reconstructing, phenomenologically destroying the established truths, and constructing other possibilities of thinking about the phenomenon in question. This is the first methodological procedure that the philosopher uses. In this modality of investigating phenomena, we find his different studies on boredom, technique, and the subject.

Feijoo (2021), in the phenomenological-hermeneutic investigation of themes in Psychology, first resorted to the first two moments inaugurated by Heidegger: phenomenological reconstruction and destruction to then, in a third moment, let what constitutes the object of study emerge in its field of appearance and shows us the path that leads the investigator to the meaning of the phenomenon being investigated. Once the multiplicity of what is found in the situation is characterized, it is possible to articulate the situational plurality of the phenomenon one wants to investigate.

Feijoo (2021), from a hermeneutic perspective - as a field of investigation - considers the factual life in which the phenomenon manifests itself, using different historical moments and how it appears in the voice of those who experience it. Therefore, historically constituted voices present themselves as a condition of possibility for plural and singular discourses about the act and affection, which involve the phenomenon, to appear.

It is worth highlighting that in this dialogue with a method of Philosophy, Feijoo (2021) proposes to appropriate a mode of investigation inspired by Heidegger, who investigated man’s existence in a phenomenological-hermeneutic way. The question arises: through this path coming from Philosophy, is it possible to appropriate the phenomenological method for investigating themes in Psychology?

Epistemological Foundations: Phenomenology and Hermeneutics

Edmund Husserl (1901/2006a) inaugurated the phenomenological method of investigating consciousness - his object of study - valuing the phenomenological view. He argued that the seen always concerns a perspective. In this sense, Husserl argues that the being of things lies in their appearance. Furthermore, we emphasize that the important thing is how things happen, that is, how. That is why we do not need to look for what the thing is: its quiddity.

Still inspired by Husserl’s phenomenology, Martin Heidegger (1927/1998) adds the hermeneutic element to phenomenology. He began to call his path of investigation phenomenology-hermeneutics. Husserl (1901/2006a) emphasizes that for phenomenological seeing to occur, firstly, it is necessary to make the movement of the phenomenological suspension. This means stopping positioning things from idealistic and/or realistic perspectives. Heidegger (1927/1998) defends that phenomenological suspension cannot be operated radically, so he introduces the hermeneutic element. Thus, he considers that historically constituted determinations cross all intentionality and that they determine men’s way of being.

The main concepts and theoretical bases of Husserlian phenomenology

Husserl’s (1901/2006a) phenomenological project argued that it was necessary to entirely overcome the theoretical behavior characteristic of the philosophical tradition. To this end, two concepts are fundamental in his project of phenomenology as a method: the notion of intentionality and the radical restructuring of the idea of the self as a synthesis of experiences.

Husserl (1901/2006a) developed his phenomenology when a crisis was occurring within the debates in Philosophy regarding the presuppositions of the universality of truths. Philosophy wanted to find the quiddity of things, so it supported the presupposition that the object has an effective determination and meaning. For truth to be achieved in its universal element, it would be necessary to make a radical split between the object and the subject. With this distance between the subject and the object, another problem arises: How would access be given from one pole to the other? Husserl (1901/2006a) calls into question the attempt at clarification through these polarities, calling into question theoretical behavior (the axioms). Phenomenology is born from this crisis and casts doubt on the possibility of definitively achieving universal truth.

Through phenomenology, Husserl (1901/2006a) tries to resolve the polarity of empiricism and idealism. He calls the tendency to position truth in the structure of the subject idealistic hypostasis in which knowledge would depend on the structures of subjectivity. Therefore, we would convey a universal truth through illusion formed in human reason. On the other hand, epistemologically, the realistic hypothesis arises, in which knowledge depends on the structure of reality. Another problem arises: how consciousness could reach the real. Attempting to solve the problem of access to truth, Husserl positions the space for understanding phenomena in intentionality.

The intentionality

Intentionality, for Husserl, is something that happens before the subject and object split. Husserl considers this most original act as a tendency towards, i.e., transcending. Intentionality does not mean intention objective. Therefore, it is beyond the will. This is a trend movement beyond itself, unlike intention, which presupposes a subject and implies a subjective want or will.

In Husserl (1901/2006a), any action presupposes the one who acts as well as the one who made something act. This is the enunciation in which enunciation is already a significant act in which the meaning appears. In intentional relationships, there is no longer a distance between being and appearing. The acts of consciousness open to that which transcends them, i.e., to the field of objects, at the same time that they position the object. The self does not position anything. The thing always shows itself on its display horizon. Intentional structures are co-originating. Unlike the causal structure, there is no temporal interval between them, in which one necessarily occurs for the other to happen. That is why when investigating phenomenologically, we do not look for causes, but we look for how the phenomenon happens.

Husserl (1901/2006a) refers to the need to break down intentional acts to reach their elements, such as the act of remembering in which the remembered appears in the field of appearance of the phenomenon. Experiential unity is intentional, and intentionality is based on the act.

In his phenomenological investigation, Husserl (1901/2006a) conducted a phenomenological analysis of intentional consciousness through the breakdown of intentional acts to reach their structures, i.e., the acts of consciousness. Through this route of investigation, he arrived at intentionality, that is, the immediate transcendence in carrying out these acts. The philosopher concludes that everything given to consciousness is first given phenomenologically. In every empirical view, a reduction to the phenomenological has already occurred. For him, a phenomenological description means following the guidelines provided by experience.

Suspension and phenomenological reduction

Husserl presents reduction as a logical-philosophical tool, presupposed from the intentionality of consciousness in 1907 (Husserl, 1913/2006b). The reduction of the empirical to the phenomenological presupposes that remembering requires the specific object to be remembered, just as any other act always requires the action, the verb.

Husserl (1913/2006b) differentiates natural from unnatural attitudes. In a natural attitude, one cannot see any specificity of the object in its spatial and temporal flow; in this way, the object is simply the factual presence, which, in the end, is what determines the being of things, whether they are of an exterior or interior order. The unnatural attitude requires effort to be able to see what is shown without any previously given determination; it consists of being able to find it strange. Husserl wrote about reductions in some of his works and used different definitions and terminologies: Epoché or phenomenological reduction, eidetic reduction, transcendental reduction, and phenomenological-psychological reduction.

The methodological issue of Husserlian phenomenology consists of the ability to exercise the phenomenological attitude, i.e., Epoché, which consists of suspending all ontological positions. Every phenomenological view requires the researcher to have an unnatural attitude, which means seeing without taking things as naturally given, i.e., placing truths posed by common sense or science in parentheses.

Imaginative variation

The methodological procedure of free imaginative variation is necessary to investigate the phenomenon’s essence. In this process, we remove the particularities of the phenomenon and check whether it continues to maintain its essence. We reach eidos by removing that without which the object is no longer achieved in its essence. In other words, if we remove the essence of what constitutes the phenomenon, it will no longer show itself in the way of what is being investigated. This movement of eidetic reduction is not capable of being carried out empirically. As the name suggests, it is an imaginative variation. Therefore, it is a thought exercise.

Describing the essence of the discovery

The description depicts what is shown as the essence of the relationship between consciousness and phenomenon. It is a descriptive examination in search of the constitutive essences of the phenomenon in its appearance so that its existential dynamics can be explained. Giorgi and Sousa (2010) summarize: “Phenomenological analysis implies a description of phenomena, as they are targeted by intentional consciousness” (p. 65).

Phenomenology-hermeneutics in Heidegger

Heidegger (1927/1998) appropriates the phenomenological method idealized by Husserl. Added to this method is the hermeneutic character that permeates the mode of appearance of every phenomenon. He began to call his path of thought phenomenology-hermeneutics. This is his path of philosophical investigation present in Being and Time (1927/1998) and The Question Concerning Technology (1954/2012), among other works. In these investigations, the philosopher first reconstructs what is commonly stated regarding the subject: man and technology. In the first, he begins by reconstructing the idea of subject, person, and subjectivity; in the second, the idea of technique in its anthropological and causalist perspective, to later be able to question such notions. He then begins to construct another way of thinking about these themes.

Phenomenological reconstruction

In the reconstruction, Heidegger shows us how the philosophical tradition establishes the truths about the topic. It is how the philosophy of subjectivity, Socratic and medieval philosophy, or even science positions the subject, the world, the truth, and the technique. In short, the element one wants to investigate.

Phenomenological destruction

In phenomenological destruction, Heidegger shows the contradictions in the universal truths established by the philosophical tradition or modern science’s way of thinking. Science needs to operate in a dichotomy to position the truth and to do so, it needs to eliminate one of the poles and reduce the phenomenon to a single dimension: psychic, organic, or social. Reducing the apprehension of the phenomenon to one of these dimensions obscures the entire existential dynamic of the phenomenon. Once this methodological procedure has been carried out, we reach the third moment, i.e., construction.

Phenomenological construction

At the time of construction, Heidegger (1927/1998), in his investigation presented in Being and Time, constructed the notion of Dasein (Dasein, for Heidegger, concerns the idea of man as being-there, that is, the unity of man-world; thus breaking with the notion of the opposition of man and world) moving away from a reductive dichotomy. And so thinks the inseparable existence of the world. The same happens when the philosopher thinks about the modern technique (Heidegger, 1954/2012). The philosopher refers to technique not as an action of man or a means to achieve an end but as a historical moment that, as such, determines man’s ways of being. He also shows us that relationships can be understood beyond the determinations of cause and effect - a constant presence in modern science.

The Phenomenological Method in Investigations in Psychology

Qualitative research methods arising from a phenomenological proposal and transposed and/or appropriated by studies and research in Psychology have long been established within the scope of research in Psychology. Some researchers in Psychology who use phenomenology refer to the need to transpose Philosophy methods to investigations in Psychology. We find Castro and Gomes (2011) and Giorgi and Sousa (2010) among them. These researchers call their method empirical-phenomenological. Feijoo (2021) calls her way of investigating phenomena such as clinical relationships, suicide, and mourning a phenomenological-hermeneutic method.

Giorgi and Sousa developed their research method, called empirical-phenomenological, based on Husserl’s phenomenology (Giorgi & Sousa, 2010). These scholars operate a transposition of the philosophical foundations and principles of phenomenology: genesis of phenomenology, intentionality, suspension, and phenomenological reduction; imaginative variation and description of the essence of phenomena.

Castro and Gomes (2011) and Giorgi and Sousa (2010) defend the transposition of the research method in Philosophy to Psychology as long as we meet some criteria described below.

Giorgi and Sousa (2010) argue that the scholar who uses the phenomenological method must respect the following criteria: broad knowledge of Husserl’s phenomenology to know that the phenomenon cannot be reduced to the empirical; understand that everything given to consciousness is phenomenologically reduced; variations must necessarily be in tune with phenomenological principles, and, finally, any understanding of the phenomenon investigated must be descriptive.

Castro and Gomes (2011) consider that, at the center of this transposition, emphasis should be placed on phenomenological reduction. They refer to three transposition models: Empirical-Phenomenological Psychology, Experimental Phenomenology, and Neurophenomenology.

Empirical-phenomenological Psychology, developed by Duquesne University - which Amedeo Giorgi took as a basis in his research - inherited the following postulates from phenomenology: the description of phenomena, phenomenological reduction, and the search for essences. Experimental phenomenology sought phenomenological principles through experimental practice. Adrian Van Kaam, in this modality, privileged the stage of imaginative variations, disregarding the phenomenological suspension (Castro & Gomes, 2011).

According to Castro and Gomes (2011), Neurophenomenology is a project of cognitive sciences, and thus, they want actually empirically to reach the integrated process of consciousness. Therefore, it warns us that what one intends to research in this modality cannot confuse the reports with what happens in the brain processes.

Unlike Giorgi and Sousa (2010), Castro and Gomes (2011) defend phenomenology as a research method in Psychology and refer to a qualitative methodology in the following terms: “The method is descriptive, presupposes the application of psychological reduction through an eidetic analysis and presumes an intentional relationship between the subject and the object” (p. 13). These scholars conclude: “The phenomenological method aims to investigate the meaning of human experience” (p. 13).

Giorgi and Sousa (2010) emphasize that using the method in psychological issues, they do not intend to describe individual experiences but rather to achieve psychological meanings about the topics investigated. Finally, they conclude: “Phenomenological Psychology proposes to study the relationship between the ‘subjectivity of knowledge and the objectivity of the content of knowledge” (p. 16).

The Phenomenological-Hermeneutic Method in Psychology

Feijoo (2018, 2021) uses phenomenology-hermeneutics to conduct her Psychology investigations. To this end, she operates in her methodological procedures in the three stages proposed by Heidegger: (1) reconstruction in two moments: suspension and phenomenological reduction; (2) phenomenological destruction - following the internal vectors of the structural mobility of the phenomenon, being the stage in which the insufficiency and aporias present in the scientific mode or tradition of positioning its object of study are pointed out, and (3) construction, in which there is a description of the phenomenon in its existential dynamics.

It is worth highlighting how philosophers of existence adopted the phenomenological method idealized by Husserl to investigate their themes. To do so, they first considered that every phenomenon, when targeted, loses sight of an empirical perspective and can only be achieved phenomenologically.

These philosophers and psychologists who investigate existence have three moments in common in their investigations: phenomenological reduction and suspension, monitoring of the internal vectors of the phenomenon, and the description and explanation of the experience. Feijoo (2021), in her phenomenological research proposal, considers the combination of the three moments of phenomenology: reduction and suspension, monitoring the internal vectors of the phenomenon, and the description of the structural mobility of the phenomenon with the three moments of Heideggerian hermeneutics: reconstruction, destruction, and construction. The author carries out her research on suicide and mourning at the following times:

Reconstruction in two stages: (a) phenomenological suspension and reduction - moving from the natural attitude, in which judgment and moral conduct predominate and assuming an unnatural stance in the face of what is presented and (b) reconstruction - in a review of literature, we return to the way in which science constructs the question investigated; (2) Phenomenological destruction in two stages: (a) one that occurs through philosophical studies and literature, pointing out the aporias present in the conclusions assumed by deterministic and causalist models of the positioning of scientific truths, (b) the description of internal vectors to the phenomenon or space-time dynamics, in which the phenomenon moves; (3) Phenomenological construction, also in two stages: (a) in which the experiences are made explicit, insofar as, by following the phenomenon as it happens in its field of display; (b) makes the essence of what occurs in the situation in which the experience appears effective (p. 94-95).

Reconstruction - phenomenological reduction and suspension

In the reconstruction stage, we act to operate the phenomenological reduction that consists of suspending any empiricist or idealist perspectives. For a phenomenological apprehension of the phenomenon, we must suspend all crossings that imply diagnosis, judgment, and moralization of behavior. It is essential to assume the unnatural stance, as proposed by Husserl (1901/2006a). Faced with the phenomenon that we intend to investigate, we distrust the truths that are considered unquestionable about the phenomenon. To proceed with the phenomenological reduction of what we want to investigate, we must first investigate what science shows as constituting the phenomenon in question.

We know that the historically constituted field always crosses man’s expressions. Two procedures lead us along this path: a narrative review of the literature and a hermeneutic understanding of the different historical horizons that comprise ways of being.

The reconstruction of what has already been formulated about what we want to investigate falls into the need to conduct a narrative review of the literature - searching in the databases for what science, manuals, and compendiums have stated about the phenomenon studied. To act hermeneutically, we must understand how the phenomenon occurs in correspondence with the requests and sedimentations in our historical moment.

Phenomenological destruction

In phenomenological destruction, we proceed in order to question the truths hegemonically positioned about the phenomenon to be investigated. Thus, we show that the truths stated are neither eternal nor timeless. They are established within a historical horizon of meaning constitution. Several resources can be used to point out aporias: prose and poetry, Philosophy and History. Along this path, we can see singular expressions prevail concerning generalizations; we can see the phenomenon happening in other cultures differently from the way it happens in ours and still doubt all the truths proposed by different knowledge. In an exercise in imaginative variation, we follow the phenomenon’s existential (spatial-temporal) dynamics and describe the different perspectives of its appearance. We can thus follow other possibilities for understanding the phenomenon that appears in addition to those previously established.

Phenomenological construction

Finally, we reach the phenomenological construction, i.e., the description and explanation of the phenomenon’s existential dynamics and its existential dynamics. In the construction stage, we move away from an explanatory perspective of the phenomenon through theories and postulates then inaugurate another way of understanding it.

By following the singular expressions, we can explain experiences in their different meanings. Thus, we reach the phenomenon’s essence, i.e., the structural unity of the experience. We can see how singularities are constituted in the cadence of a historically constituted time by gaining distance from the hegemonic way of thinking, i.e., as something that concerns the subject or only the social.

To explain the different moments that constitute the phenomenological-hermeneutic method, we present Table 1 below:

Table 1
Stages of the Phenomenological-Hermeneutic Method in Psychology

Stages of the phenomenological method		Methodological procedures	Data collection and analysis
Reconstruction	Reduction: the passage from the natural attitude to the unnatural or phenomenological one.	Literature review: secondary, i.e., articles, books, theses, and dissertations that deal with the topic, thus describing how psychological science approaches the phenomenon to be investigated.	Search the database according to the languages, their respective descriptors, and the time interval established for the search. The arguments and justifications supporting the above decisions must be developed at this stage.
Search in bibliographical research how knowledge on the topic we intend to research is constituted.
	Suspension: judgments and morals established by common sense and science regarding the topic investigated.
Destruction	Point out the aporias of truths established by theories and research dealing with the investigated phenomenon.	Literature review: primary, with arguments from the classics of the philosophy of existence, history, or literature, pointing to the reductions, simplifications, and insufficiencies of the truths postulated by science.	Studies of critical analyses by philosophers, historians, or literary scholars who deal with the topic investigated or even the contradictions about the themes within the scientific research.
This path opens up other possibilities for understanding the phenomenon.
	Using imaginative variation, we follow the vectors internal to the phenomenon or the spatio-temporal dynamics in which the phenomenon moves.	With open interviews or clinical consultations, we monitor the situation presenting itself in a unique context. To do so, we need to ensure that there is a triggering question - in the case of interviews. Furthermore, in the case of monitoring the clinical situation, we let the situation unfold as it happens.	Careful reading and phenomenological analysis of the expressions that appeared during the interview(s) or clinical care(s) to reach the existential expressions present in the reports of the research participants.
Construction	Description and explanation of units of meaning extracted from the expressions that appeared significant in the experiences of the research participants.	A careful and detailed reading of the units of meaning was obtained during the meeting to highlight the units of meaning.	Highlight, through a hermeneutic analysis, the meanings present in the experiences of the reports presented, giving them a name.
Articulation of other possible ways of understanding the phenomenon
	Unity of meaning of experience.	We can reach what is essential in the clinical discourse or the interview through an analysis that leads us to the meanings of the reported experiences.	Highlight the element that shows the essential meaning of the phenomenon investigated and responds to the investigation proposal.

• Note. Source: The author.

Final Considerations

In defense of using phenomenological-hermeneutic investigations in Psychology, we emphasize that psychological phenomena concerning experience cannot be taken as naturally given nor subjected to scientific rationality.

C.M. Silva et al. (2020) argue that phenomenological research still questions the method. These scholars argue that the universal and singular dichotomy is resolved with the notion of intentionality. They emphasize, however, that this modality still lacks an operational description in empirical investigation. They also say it is necessary to clarify how phenomenological principles affect research without forgetting to consider the historical-relational aspect in which each piece of knowledge is constructed.

In the same direction, Giorgi and Sousa (2010) also point to answers that can clarify the problem raised by C.M. Silva et al. (2020, p. 22):

Positivist and objectivist epistemology, framing investigations that scrupulously fulfilled the premises of the experimental method measuring facts based on mathematical analyses, became the appropriate language to simplify and segment man and the world.

Souza and Paulo (2020) value the analysis process and the relevance of the hermeneutic interpretative movement for research in Mathematics Education. They explain the importance of abduction in the relationship between the researcher and the mathematics learner as extremely important in the opening that makes it possible to learn the content of this discipline.

The phenomenological-hermeneutic perspective and other qualitative methodologies do not escape criticism. According to Feijoo (2021, p. 100):

Obviously, criticisms based on positivist paradigms with a quantitative nature do not consider that qualitative research is in another scope of human understanding. In this context, factual experience is of interest, which is always in temporal and spatial flux and, therefore, can never meet the criteria of hard science. On the other hand, something worries and threatens respect for qualitative methodologies. This is the proliferation of qualitative methodologies without paying attention to epistemological and ontological rigor and depth, which must always be the basis of any method perspective.

Finally, we will answer the question we introduced at the beginning of this study: Is it possible to appropriate Husserl’s phenomenology for investigations in Psychology? All our efforts throughout this study were to show that this is possible. Castro and Gomes (2011) and Giorgi and Sousa (2010) argue that they made a transposition and that this must take place to consider the foundations of the specific science that uses the method. To this end, they warn that we must be aware that every method has strengths and vulnerable points - and masterfully point out the insufficiencies of each of the appropriations of the method by researchers who carry out science.

Feijoo (2021) also clarifies that it is possible to appropriate the method used by Heidegger in his investigations in Philosophy. This is for two reasons: firstly, Heidegger (1927/1998) cares about factual life, i.e., human experience, just like Psychology. Heidegger and philosophers of existence investigate subjectivity, anguish, despair, and boredom, among other affections. Furthermore, these same affections are of interest to research in Psychology. What about phenomenology? Husserl (1901/2006a), about his interests, says it is about taking experience as a phenomenon and not as experimental facts.

Moreira and Souza (2016) highlighted the contributions of the phenomenological empirical method in research in different areas of study. Along this path of thought, Ramirez-Perdomo and Rodriguez-Velez (2018) in nursing and Feijoo (2021) in psychology appropriated Husserl’s phenomenological method and Heidegger’s hermeneutics in their research. Ramirez-Perdomo and Rodriguez-Velez (2018) investigated people’s reactions to a cancer diagnosis. Feijoo (2018, 2021) investigated the clinical relationship between mourning and suicide. We conclude that, through the qualitative research modality in the phenomenological-hermeneutic perspective, we can reach the meanings of singular experiences, always crossed by epochal determinations. Therefore, we can reach actions in Psychology that, without a doubt, will contribute to the advances of Psychology as a science and profession.

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Edited by

Associate editor: Sonia Regina Pasian

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  15 Dec 2023
• Date of issue
  2023

History

• Received
  26 Sept 2022
• Reviewed
  26 June 2023
• Reviewed
  15 Aug 2023
• Accepted
  31 Aug 2023