Teaching phenomenology by way of "second-person perspectivity" (from my thirty years at the University of Dallas)

 

 

Scott D. Churchill

 

 

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ABSTRACT

Phenomenology has remained a sheltering place for those who would seek to understand not only their own "first person" experiences but also the first person experiences of others. Recent publications by renowned scholars within the field have clarified and extended our possibilities of access to "first person" experience by means of perception (Lingis, 2007) and reflection (Zahavi, 2005). Teaching phenomenology remains a challenge, however, because one must find ways of communicating to the student how to embody it as a process rather than simply to learn about it as a content area. Another challenge issues from the fact that most writings on applied phenomenology emphasize individual subjectivity as the central focus, while offering only indirect access to the subjectivity of others (for example, by way of analyzing written descriptions provided by the individual under study). While one finds in the literature of psychotherapy plentiful elucidations of the "we-experience" within which therapists form impressions of their clients' experience, there is still need for a more thoughtful clarification of our rather special personal modes of access to the experience of others in everyday life. This paper will present "second person perspectivity" as a mode of resonating with the expressions of others and will describe class activities that can bring students closer to a lived understanding of what it means to be doing phenomenology in the face of the other.

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About the Author

 

 

Scott D. Churchill earned his PhD in clinical phenomenological psychology at Duquesne University with an empirical-phenomenological dissertation on psychodiagnostic seeing. He is currently Professor and Graduate Programme Director in the Psychology Department at the University of Dallas, where he has been teaching for three decades. Professionally focused on the understanding of various forms of expression, both human and non-human, he is interested in the development of phenomenological and hermeneutic methodologies, and has taught a wide variety of courses ranging from primatology and projective techniques to film studies, existential phenomenology and Daseinsanalysis. In addition to developing the notion of "second person perspectivity" in relation to qualitative research, ethology, and health care, Professor Churchill is currently engaged in an ongoing experiential study of interspecies communication with the bonobos at the Fort Worth Zoo, and is a local co-ordinator for Jane Goodall's Roots & Shoots programme.

Professor Churchill's publications include entries in the APA's Encyclopedia of Psychology; chapters in the Handbook of Humanistic Psychology and in Ron Valle's Phenomenological Inquiry: Existential and Transpersonal Dimensions, as well as articles in The Humanistic Psychologist, Constructivism in the Human Sciences, Journal of Phenomenological Psychology, Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, The Psychotherapy Patient, and Somatics. In 2006 he assumed the position of Editor-in-Chief for The Humanistic Psychologist after having served from 1989-2003 as Editor of Methods: A Journal for Human Science. He is also a Consulting Editor for the Journal of Phenomenological Psychology, Encyclopaideia: Journal of Phenomenology and Education, Qualitative Research in Psychology, Human Studies, The Janus Head, and The Psychotherapy Patient.

Professor Churchill is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, a liaison to its Science Directorate, Past President of the Division of Humanistic Psychology, and an active member of the executive board of the Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology. He has also served as a visiting professor at Duquesne University, Saybrook Graduate School, Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, and Macquarrie University in Sydney, as well as at Johannes Guttenberg University in Mainz, the University of Konstanz, and the University of Bari. In addition to his contribution in the professional sphere, he has served in Dallas as a film critic for local television, and been an invited juror at Dallas film and video festivals, for over 25 years. E-mail Address: bonobo@udallas.edu