When the mouth is affected by cancer, difficulties in satisfying basic human needs such as eating, tasting, swallowing, and speaking might arise, and the existential significance of the mouth might become obvious. How does it feel to live with these difficulties? What does it mean to be a human being living with the consequences of oral cancer? Five patients with oral cancer were interviewed a median time of 4 years after the beginning of treatment. A hermeneutic research approach was used to understand, explain, and interpret the transcribed interviews and showed how the consequences of oral cancer affected the being-in-the-world of the participants in three ways: existing as oneself, existing in the eyes of others, and existing with others. Against the background of the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, these findings illuminate how essential the mouth is to a human being's identity and existence.

Only a few studies explore the lifeworld of the spouses of persons affected by early-onset Alzheimer disease (AD). The aim of this study is to explore the lifeworld of spouses when their partners are diagnosed with AD, focusing on spouses’ lived experience. The study employs an interpretative phenomenological framework. Ten in-depth interviews are performed. The results show that spouses’ lifeworld changes with the diagnosis. They experience an imprisoned existence in which added obligations, fear, and worry keep them trapped at home, both physically and mentally. In their longing for freedom, new strategies and attitudes helps the spouses to create an extended “lived space” with their partner. The findings stress the importance of paying attention to the lifeworld of spouses and making clinical recommendations on this basis. Most importantly, the lifeworld perspective has implications for how we understand what care is. We hope to challenge all different healthcare professionals and invite them to discuss the deep meaning of care and the definition of being professional in encounters with vulnerable others from a lifeworld perspective.

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This article explores the possibilities and limits of a hermeneutic way of being in the world, more specifically being a researcher as a part of human, embodied existence. Understanding existence as embodied highlights the subjectivity of a researcher. For a hermeneutic researcher this subjectivity is both a precondition for interpretation and something that might endanger the scientific endeavour. In this article, I examine the possibilities of combining Hans-Georg Gadamer's empathetic hermeneutics with Paul Ricoeur's critical hermeneutics as a means of both recognizing and, to some extent, controlling my subjectivity in the research process. With Gabriel Marcel I also argue for hermeneutics as an embodied experience. This is exemplified by my study with a focus on the existential dimensions of the nursing profession. The first part of the article introduces Marcel and his philosophical anthropology concerning our bodily existence as essential for shared lives with others. In the second part, this understanding of self and others is further developed by means of the hermeneutics of Gadamer and Ricoeur. In the third part, I present a way of applying hermeneutics in procedures for interviews, transcription, and analysis of data.

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