Teaching phenomenology through highlighting experience

 

 

Steen Hailing

 

 

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ABSTRACT

Based on the assumption that phenomenology is a style not just of thinking, but also of perceiving and acting, this paper shows how, through specific assignments and practices, phenomenological research can become personally as well as professionally meaningful for students. Disciplined practice helps students to attend to experience even though culturally and educationally ingrained habits devalue its importance. By working together in groups, the phenomenon under study is more likely to come alive for the student researchers, and articulating the core of an experience no longer to seem so daunting. The practice of phenomenology also helps students to recognize that slowing down and giving their full attention to experience is restorative, productive, and deeply satisfying.

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References

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About the Author

 

 

Steen Halling is a licensed psychologist and Professor of Psychology at the University of Seattle, USA, where he teaches in the MA programme in existential-phenomenological psychology as well as in the undergraduate programme.

Professor Halling's research and publications have focused on topics such as the psychology of forgiveness, the phenomenological study of psychopathology, and the psychology of hopelessness, as well as interpersonal relations, and qualitative research methods.

Co-editor, with Ronald S. Valle, of Existential-Phenomenological Perspectives in Psychology (Plenum, 1989), and author of Intimacy, Transcendence and Psychology: Closeness and Openness in Everyday Life (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), he is currently editor of the International Human Science Research Conference Newsletter. E-mail Address: shalling@seattleu.edu