Much has been tried to understand the world that surrounds us, trying to do it in the most objective and empirical way possible, however, sometimes, the experiences and sensations that we have of our reality can acquire great importance, especially in the therapeutic context.

Phenomenology is a philosophical branch that tries to understand and give importance to how people live the world in which they live , both in terms of its more physical aspect and in terms of social interaction and emotionality.

Let’s see more in depth this complex philosophical current, what relationship it has with psychology and which have been its most outstanding authors.

Phenomenology and its relationship to psychology

Phenomenology is a philosophical movement that emerged during the 20th century, whose etymological origin is ‘phainomenon’, (in Greek, ‘appearance, manifestation’) and ‘logos’ (‘science, knowledge’). Thus, it can be understood as ‘the study of manifestations.

In this branch of philosophy, the aim is to investigate and describe phenomena or objects as they are experienced by people . This idea is not only applicable in the field of psychology, but also in many other fields of knowledge, making phenomenology encompass very varied elements depending on the subject where it is applied.

In the case of psychology, phenomenology deals with the study of the structures of consciousness from a first-person perspective, that is, taking into account how the person experiences it.

What do you do?

Defining clearly what phenomenology refers to with its field of study is certainly a complicated task.

As we were already commenting, it could be extracted as a fundamental idea within this current, which at the same time is a method and a philosophical branch, that of ‘going to understand the things themselves’ , that is to say, trying to understand the world without having prejudices, in the form of previous knowledge and theories, which could influence its interpretation.

Origins

While it is true that we have said that this discipline and philosophical current emerged in the 20th century, its roots are much earlier. In fact, the first person to use the term ‘phenomenology’ was the Swiss mathematician and philosopher Johann Heinrich Lambert , who used it referring to the method he had proposed to explain how to distinguish between truth, illusion and error.

However, the first time the term was defined in the way it is understood today is in the work of the German philosopher George Friedrich Hegel, ‘A Phenomenology of the Spirit’ (1807). In short, in this work he tried to understand and explain the development of the human mind from the meaning of its own existence.

But really, phenomenology is not established as the philosophical movement, both theoretical and applied, that is nowadays in the middle of the 20th century, when Edmund Husserl , of whom we speak with more detail later, founded it methodologically speaking. He was the author of the foundation of the transcendental phenomenology and, thanks to him, the movement was transformed into a whole line of complex thought that nowadays continues having a great weight inside the human sciences.

Phenomenological method and the figure of Edmund Husserl

The phenomenological method not only acquires importance at a philosophical level, but, as we were commenting before, it has been of great contribution in disciplines that try to understand human beings, such as sociology, psychology and pedagogy.

Edmund Husserl is considered to be the most responsible for the vision and idea of phenomenology today. Within his theory, he defended the idea of not presupposing absolutely anything about the perceived and studied reality . Therefore, it can be interpreted that it was contrary to concepts that, although they are very accepted in society, are really constituted of prejudices and preconceptions, such as the idea of ‘common sense’ and ideologies of a discriminatory nature.

The phenomenological method, both the one proposed by Husserl himself and the conception of the current within psychology today, follows the following three stages:

1. Examine all contents of consciousness

This indicates that the person is aware that the object he or she is perceiving is something sensitive, that it is there.

2. Being self-aware

In this phase, the person determines whether the perceived contents really exist or, on the contrary, are made up of ideas, that is, they are part of his or her imagination.

3. Suspend phenomenological awareness

This is nothing more than feeling the object perceived by itself, without entering into reasoning about whether or not it is real, just grasping it.

As can be understood on the basis of these three phases, it is logical to understand why phenomenological methodology has been accused of being too subjective. After all, it focuses on how a person experiences a phenomenon, not how, in more objective terms, it is received by the sense organs as a stimulus and how the brain, at a physiological level, interprets it.

The truth is that, today, phenomenology still aspires to become a current that tries to combine both the subjective aspects that the person experiences with an interpretation as objective as possible of this interpretation. What is certain is that the method is more of a qualitative than a quantitative type.

Representatives of this stream

Besides Edmund Husserl, there are many great philosophers and thinkers of the last two centuries who can be considered as great representatives of the current, both when it was formally founded and when it was still originating.

The figure of Franz Brentano, who has been attributed to be the origin of modern phenomenology, is very important. Already before the use of the term as it is known nowadays, there were numerous great characters of history who proposed the phenomenological foundations.

Among them we can find the figure of David Hume, who in his work ‘Treatise on Human Nature’ shows to be in favour of the phenomenological approach, although it had not been fully conceptualized yet. Another remarkable is Immanuel Kant, who in ‘Critique of Pure Reason’ makes a distinction between objects, understood as phenomena, formed and assimilated by human sensitivity, and noumens, which could be translated as ‘things-in-itself’ (for example, one’s own thought).

Already towards the middle of the 20th century, the figures of Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau-Ponty are noteworthy.

Phenomenological therapies

Traditionally, therapies with a humanist orientation have been related to the foundations of phenomenology. From the phenomenological point of view, the therapeutic situation consists of a singular context in which there is, at least, the intersubjective interaction of two phenomenologies, that is, the experiences of the patient himself and the experiences of the therapist himself.

Thus, the patient lives his reality in a certain way, which, in turn, is reinterpreted by the psychotherapist himself to whom he confesses his inner world . Of course, the psychologist will not interpret the patient’s world in the same way as the patient does. That is to say, it will be a reinterpretation of an interpretation. However, it is clear from humanistic therapies that one should try to understand the patient’s own vision when he or she is referring to how he or she sees and feels the world.

Among the therapies, mostly of a humanistic-existential orientation, which have emphasized the phenomenological fields of both the patient and the psychotherapist himself, we can find

1. Person-Centered Psychotherapy

This therapy, formulated by Carl Rogers, is based on reflecting, clarifying and transforming the patient’s inner world as he describes it to his therapist.

Since he formulated it, Rogers defended the idea that the therapist should understand in an empathic way the reality lived by the patient, and that clinical descriptions of these experiences should be dispensed with.

Later, he himself came to emphasize the importance of two people sharing their experiential worlds , as they are living them, and thus favoring a mutual enrichment between the worlds perceived by patient and therapist.

2. Body psychotherapy

This therapy, whose foundations are found in the thought of Wilhelm Reich, originally defended the immediate phenomenological observation that the therapist makes of the patient’s body and gestures .

Subsequently, this therapy gave greater weight to the psychological and physical processes as they are experienced and described phenomenologically by the patient during the psychotherapy session.

Post-reichian psychotherapy has been developed with the aim of trying to transform the client/patient’s experience of themselves and their own bodily reality.

3. Gestalt

Gestalt therapists have been emphasizing the clinical utility of contrasting and classifying the most remarkable differences between the patient’s phenomenological experience and that of the psychologist.

Bibliographic references:

  • Moreira, V. (2001). Beyond the person: Towards a worldly phenomenological psychotherapy. Santiago de Chile: Editorial Universidad de Santiago.
  • Moss, D. (Ed.) (1999). Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychology: A Historical and Biographical Sourcebook. Westport: Greenwood Press
  • Sassenfeld-Jonquera, A., and Moncada-Arroyo, L. (2006) Phenomenology and humanistic-existential psychotherapy. Journal of Psychology of the University of Chile, 15(1), 89-104.
  • Waldenfels, B. (1992). From Husserl to Derrida: Introduction to phenomenology. Barcelona: Paidós.