“Home” is well known from everyday experience, plays a crucial role in all kinds of narratives about human life, but is hardly ever systematically dealt with in the philosophy of medicine and health care. The notion of home is ambiguous, is often used in a metaphorical way, and is closely related to concepts such as house and dwelling. In this paper the phenomenon of home is explored by means of some phenomenological writings of Heidegger, Bollnow, Bachelard and Levinas. Common in (...) their views is that being at home and dwelling mean something more fundamental than an activity we do along with other activities, such as working and travelling. Dwelling, building a house and being at home are fundamental aspects of human existence. Being human is dwelling. While exploring the relevance of this phenomenological perspective for medical theory and practice, the focus is on the care of people suffering from dementia. (shrink)

Although many classical works on preaching, especially within the reformed tradition, would take as point of departure the question of understanding, that is, how to do exegesis of a biblical text in such a manner that it makes sense to present-day listeners of sermons, this article opts for an aesthetical approach, which does not exclude the question of intelligibility, but places it within aesthetical frameworks, such as our multi-sensing of space and time. Preaching, in my opinion, entails more than just (...) speaking, hearing and understanding. It calls, inter alia, for a multi-sensory discovery of space and time, within space and time. This article reflects specifically on the spatial dimension of preaching pertaining to experiences of being, or coming, home and, conversely, leaving home, that is, experiencing liminality, as not-being-at-home. (shrink)

This study aims to portray children’s lived spaces in rural Taiwan during the 1960s. Taiwan started to develop into a prosperous and industrialized country with a stronger and dynamic economy during the 1960s while it maintained an authoritarian, single-party government. Today, Taiwan has transformed into a country that is not only economically developed, but also socially Westernized. The lived spaces of children in suburban Taiwan have gone through a drastic change during the last 50 years. This study attempts to provide (...) descriptions of children’s lived space during the 1960s as a different way that space could be lived in comparison to the present westernized space and gives insights into an Other kind of the lived space of society today. I interviewed two native Taiwanese adults who were about 10 years old during the 1960s. I asked them to draw a picture of their childhood home and to describe their everyday experience in that space. Both participants described a childhood home similar to a traditional san-ho-yuan architecture that has an open space in the center of a three-wing building. The architecture of children’s lived spaces in rural Taiwan during the 60s invites intimate familial encounters, engagements with nature and domestic animals, and communal activities for children. With the narratives of the participants, attention was drawn to how children are living in the present day Taiwanese architecture where they are provided with a separate and distinct lived space that does not allow for close and intimate encounters with adults, other children, and nature. The concluding remark underlies the challenges of forming a sense of identity in the given lived space that children face today. (shrink)

This paper uses Schrag's framework to analyze an episode of pain and to discuss the phenomenological perspective of pain. The experience of pain is explicated through the metaphor of co-present, interwoven fields of consciousness, embodiment, attitudinal posture and custom, time, and space. Interventions based on the metaphor are discussed.

In this paper, we pay attention to the impact on staff of what was a new place, Ko Awatea, within a large New Zealand hospital. The place became a space from within which a particular mood arose. This paper seeks to capture that mood and its impact. Using a Heideggerian hermeneutic approach, the study reported on drew on data from interviews with 20 staff. Philosophical notions about the nature and mood of place/space are explored. As staff claimed this space, the (...) mood that emerged was of liveliness, buzz and comfort. It became a space where people wanted to be, where they met others, where conversations unfolded, where thinking happened in new ways. Staff places tend to be sacrificed or poorly resourced in resource-tight environments. We argue that creating a space that feels home-like, where staff come, linger and engage in community is a priority for generating the mood and thinking of an organization. Such spaces do not happen by chance; it takes forethought and intentionality. The gift of such space is the thinking that is sparked and grown. (shrink)

The present paper explores patients’ experience of lived space at the hospital and at home. To expand the understanding of the existential meaning of lived space the study revisited two empirical studies and a study of a meta-synthesis on health and caring. Phenomenological philosophy was chosen as a theoretical framework for an excursive analysis. The paper demonstrates that existential dimensions of lived space at the hospital and at home differ significantly. For the patients, the hospital space means alien territory as (...) opposed to the familiar territory of home. To some extent the experienced differences are due to the physical environment; however, as our analysis shows, other and more significant meanings are also involved. For patients, lived space at the hospital primarily concerns the influence of complex institutional power structures and specific cultural and social conventions, e.g. the role of the good patient and the ambiance of hospitals. Home, on the other hand, offers familiar lived space in which patients feel protected and safe. Further, the paper relates patients’ experience of lived space to a phenomenological view of lived space in order to illustrate the radical influence of illness on patients’ lifeworld and experience of lived space. The combination of illness and general discomfort may influence patients’ experience of home negatively; the former experience of home as a sanctuary changes into feelings of being left on one’s own and burdened by too much responsibility. Consequently, in the light of the increasing focus on patients’ self-monitoring at home, it is important for healthcare professionals to recognize the influence of spatial aspects on patients’ well-being both at the hospital and at home. (shrink)

In this paper the author explores certain fulfilling personal experiences that he describes as the presencing of space, i.e. the way in which an individual’s spatial involvement may put him or her in contact with reality as a whole. These experiences are investigated from a phenomenological perspective, and the differences between them and other similar experiences, such as that of the sublime or topophilia, are highlighted. A neologism is introduced: topoaletheia to name a distinctive type of spatial experience. This concept (...) may enrich the discussion about our involvement with space in our built environments. (shrink)

In this paper, we explore the meaning of pedagogical place by focusing on significant relations between teachers, students, and the various places in which they appear to find pedagogical thoughtfulness. By opening up educational discourse to consider pedagogy beyond established notions of classroom practice, we invite readers to step outside perceived limits of classroom instruction. How might we know a pedagogical moment when we encounter one? When does a place become pedagogical? Formerly an outdoor educator of youth and an elementary (...) teacher, now university teacher educators, we explore what it means to be in the right place, pedagogically. Some observations on pedagogical place that emerged after reflecting on the lived experiences of various teachers include: different places are appropriate for engaging in different kinds of pedagogical activities with students; activities can be experienced as in place or out-of-place; dwelling pedagogically is being absorbed, being able to dwell authentically in a learning experience without interruption or distraction; nature involves such areas as the natural ability and interests of the child, the relationship of the natural physical and social world, and the nature of learning. (shrink)