Absent mechanisms of restorative justice, victims of sexual harassment, particularly those within the LGBT+ community that are already frequent targets of relational aggression, are unlikely to either report or reckon with the consequences of inappropriate workplace behaviors and discrimination. Written from the perspective of a masculinized bisexual whose encounter with a pervasive culture of sexual harassment and psychological abuse provoked suicidal ideation, this paper employs the artistic practices of illustration as a means of first re-cognizing and recognizing phenomena, a Ricœurean (...) construct of narrative and a palimpsest of multivocal text and images to evoke the lived experience of harassment and an analytic layer to invoke the phenomenon. By drawing, writing, and thinking through the phenomenon, the marriage of artistic and phenomenological approaches allows both researcher and reader to confront the ‘painful truths’ that otherwise resist easy analysis. (shrink)

What is it like to interact in a clinical setting when a technological device is participating? This inquiry was conducted in a primary healthcare setting, with the aim of shedding light on clinicians’ and patients’ experiences regarding the use of a tablet-with-app, intended for a more systematic assessment, as well as electronic registration and storing of patient data. In this paper, we present an account of four experiential exemplars of adopting an eTool in a clinical setting. The “faciality” of the (...) digital device seems to be important to both patients and clinicians, as well as the interaction between them. The “face” can be used for engaging in conversation, addressing awkward topics, communicating, or inviting involvement. The face can also be used for just resting the eyes or lowering the gaze to maintain a low profile during the clinical encounter. Concurrently, the size, the shape, and the backside of the eTool’s face can mediate distance. We expand the notion of “screen sharing” and suggest that humans’ ability to move from one mode to another and embody digital spaces in the clinical encounter seems enhanced by their ability to include the eTool’s face in their interaction. This knowledge can be used in the development of digital tools for teaching, as well as for health professions. (shrink)

This article highlights the lived experience of the relationship between the mental health nurse and the patient in institutional treatment. The premise for a relationship between persons in professional settings is the awareness of the responsibility that the relationship is a possibility rather than a tool, and that the relationship is a lived encounter additional to being a factual experience. Any relationship – personal and professional – in this understanding is an action as well as a re-action, as both parties (...) are at mercy of each other and thus they can only partly plan and predict the process and the outcome of their relationship. We explore the relationship between nurse and patient, in terms of the tension between difference and togetherness, and suggest solicitude to be a core quality in mental health relations. (shrink)

“Friedrich Schleiermacher [wrote]: ‘for every domain that can be called an art in the narrow sense of the word …practice always precedes theory’ (2021, p. 5). Art is meant here in the sense taken from the Middle Ages, as one speaks of a healing art, the art of statecraft, etc. This means that there has always been—indeed since the beginning of humankind—a kind of education which is manifest in certain practices and [later] in certain institutions such as schools. This all (...) existed before any disciplinary or scientific theory of education had been formed. Schleiermacher continues: ‘The dignity of practice exists independently from theory. Theory only makes practice more conscious’ (p. 6). The task of such a theory, in other words, is to make us aware of what is already given to us. One can put this succinctly: Being a part of an educational science, pedagogy is the theory of a practice, a practice that builds on a previously existing practice, and that is then related back to theory.". (shrink)

The mystery of death is part of the enigma of life itself. In nursing, being next to someone dying makes us more aware of our strengths and limitations while caring for someone who walks into the unknown. As nurses, we are affected by these experiences, so how do we deal with them? What is the essence of caring for someone dying in the ICU? What makes each experience unique? Through the experience of being with someone as they are dying, we (...) discover our limits, our finiteness. We cannot deny death’s disruptive and silent spirit that embodies us, yet death, like other aspects of life, is unique; it appears to teach us that life goes on, that life cannot wait for us. (shrink)

Published in 2021 as part of Sage Publications’ Qualitative Research Methods Series, Katarzyna Peoples’ How to Write a Phenomenological Dissertation: A Step-by-Step Guide provides budding phenomenologists a practical framework with which to engage a phenomenological research design and craft a quality doctoral dissertation. Peoples offers a point of entry for a novice looking to understand the purpose and machinations of phenomenological research, believing that phenomenological philosophy and research design can be grasped if it is presented in a straightforward manner. Peoples’ (...) book does not overreach, and is both accessible and engaging; it will be helpful for any doctoral student looking to write a phenomenological dissertation. (shrink)

This paper aims to show how a phenomenological theory of empathy can be used to achieve a close interpersonal relationship that serves to support shared decision making and recovery from mental health problems. This framework can also be seen as a way to maintain a professional distance in such relationships. First, the paper briefly describes the basics of shared decision making and recovery-oriented practice. Second, the paper presents the notion of second-person perspectivity, the “we-relation”, and the phenomenological term epoché as (...) a background to discussing the possibility of performing a specific kind of epoché, which actively brackets taken-for-granted presuppositions and notions and instead facilitates a focus on the meaning of the other’s experience: a special kind of intentionality directed toward the other’s intentionality. Third, the paper notes that the aim of actively assuming an empathic attitude paves the way for a passive ethnographic epoché that allows for an exploration of the other’s personal world, which constitutes the context for meaning. In this way, we can increase the possibilities of developing a professional “we-relation” and minimizing the risk of emotional contagion. This is a skill that can be learned through training, and that can increase the possibility of developing a deeper interpersonal understanding that will be of value to recovery-oriented practice. (shrink)

This is a book review of D.Carr’s Historical Experience: Essays on the Phenomenology of History.

What does moral disquiet mean to professional human practices? The phenomenon of moral disquiet comes to awareness in concrete lived human experiences and might be described with the help of examples from practice. The article explores lived moral disquiet in nursing, teaching and caring practices. It highlights moral disquiet from direct descriptions in which the phenomenon arises as an event in students’ lifeworlds including professional human relationships in societal institutions like a hospital, nursing home and kindergarten. We suggest that moral (...) disquiet, expressed as the human sensitivity toward others, does not depend on success or failure of outcome, but is a quality of belief and hope in the lives of others that offers possible moments of humanness. (shrink)