The articles collected in this volume were written during a period of more than thirty years, the first having been published in 1929, the last in 1961. They are arranged in a systematic, not a chronological order, starting from a few articles mainly concerned with psychological matters and then passing on to phenomenology in the proper sense.
Phenomenology in Psychology and Psychiatry is a historical introduction to phenomenology in psychology working from the general to the details of the subject.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961) is well known for his work in phenomenology, but his lectures in child psychology and pedagogy have received little attention, probably because Talia Welsh translated the lectures in their entirety only in 2010. The Child as Natural Phenomenologist summarizes Merleau-Ponty’s work in child psychology, shows its relationship to his philosophical work, and argues for its continued relevance in contemporary theory and practice. Welsh demonstrates Merleau-Ponty’s unique conception of the child’s development as inherently organized, meaningful, and engaged with the world, contrary to views that see the child as largely internally preoccupied and driven by instinctual demands. Welsh finds that Merleau-Ponty’s ideas about human psychology remain relevant in today’s growing field of child studies and that they provide important insights for philosophers, sociologists, and psychologists to better understand the human condition.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty is one of the few major phenomenologists to engage extensively with empirical research in the sciences, and the only one to examine child psychology with rigor and in such depth. His writings have recently become increasingly influential, as the findings of psychology and cognitive science inform and are informed by phenomenological inquiry. Merleau-Ponty’s Sorbonne lectures of 1949 to 1952 are a broad investigation into child psychology, psychoanalysis, pedagogy, phenomenology, sociology, and anthropology. They argue that the subject of child psychology is critical for any philosophical attempt to understand individual and intersubjective existence. Talia Welsh’s new translation provides Merleau-Ponty’s complete lectures on the seminal engagement of phenomenology and psychology.
In this volume, Clark Moustakas clearly discusses the theoretical underpinnings of phenomenology, based on the work of Husserl and others, and takes the reader step-by-step through the process of conducting a phenomenological study. His concise guide provides numerous examples of successful phenomenological studies from a variety of fields including therapy, health care, victimology, psychology and gender studies. The book also includes form letters and other research tools to use in designing and conducting a study.
Transformative Phenomenology captures the influence of phenomenology and hermeneutics on non-university-based scholar-practitioners who completed their doctoral education in later life, thus blending their workplace experiences with their intellectual interests. Contributions from seasoned university-based scholars expands our understanding of phenomenological inquiry in fresh ways. The concept of 'transformative phenomenology' springs from the long-term teaching and research experiences of David Rehorick and Valerie Bentz, the book's co-editors.
This volume explores the essential issues involved in bringing phenomenology together with the cognitive sciences, and provides some examples of research located at the intersection of these disciplines. The topics addressed here cover a lot of ground, including questions about naturalizing phenomenology, the precise methods of phenomenology and how they can be used in the empirical cognitive sciences, specific analyses of perception, attention, emotion, imagination, embodied movement, action and agency, representation and cognition, inters- jectivity, language and metaphor. In addition there are chapters that focus on empirical experiments involving psychophysics, perception, and neuro- and psychopathologies. The idea that phenomenology, understood as a philosophical approach taken by thinkers like Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and others, can offer a positive contribution to the cognitive sciences is a relatively recent idea. Prior to the 1990s, phenomenology was employed in a critique of the first wave of cognitivist and computational approaches to the mind (see Dreyfus 1972). What some consider a second wave in cognitive science, with emphasis on connectionism and neuros- ence, opened up possibilities for phenomenological intervention in a more positive way, resulting in proposals like neurophenomenology (Varela 1996). Thus, bra- imaging technologies can turn to phenomenological insights to guide experimen- tion (see, e. g. , Jack and Roepstorff 2003; Gallagher and Zahavi 2008).
′It is not often I can use "accessible" and "phenomenology" in the same sentence, but reading the new book, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis...certainly provides me the occasion to do so. I can say this because these authors provide an engaging and clear introduction to a relatively new analytical approach′ - The Weekly Qualitative Report Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) is an increasingly popular approach to qualitative inquiry. This handy text covers its theoretical foundations and provides a detailed guide to conducting IPA research. Extended worked examples from the authors′ own studies in health, sexuality, psychological distress and identity illustrate the breadth and depth of IPA research. Each of the chapters also offers a guide to other good exemplars of IPA research in the designated area. The final section of the book considers how IPA connects with other contemporary qualitative approaches like discourse and narrative analysis and how it addresses issues to do with validity. The book is written in an accessible style and will be extremely useful to students and researchers in psychology and related disciplines in the health and social sciences.
