Introducing existential-phenomenological psychology

Rolf von Eckartsberg

pp. 3-20

in: Ronald Valle (ed), Phenomenological inquiry in psychology, Berlin, Springer, 1998

Abstract

Reflective analysis of life-world experience has been the focus of interest of philosophical phenomenology (Spiegelberg, 1960). Inspired by this work, psychologists and psychiatrists have begun to build a phenomenologically oriented approach to their disciplines (May, Angel, & Ellenberger, 1958; Spiegelberg, 1963). While much of this effort has been oriented toward clinical psychology and psychiatry, some of it is concerned with developing empirical and hermeneutical methods for doing phenomenological research on psychological phenomena. These research approaches are intended to study the meanings of human experiences in situations, as they spontaneously occur in the course of daily life. The emphasis is on the study of lived experience, on how we read, enact, and understand our life-involvements.