To fulfill our collective calling to understand and to heal human persons, psychologists need to be taught ways of listening, observing, and knowing others that respect and preserve the richness of human experience as it is lived. This article serves to introduce current and future researchers of the human condition to a perspective that values what is meaningful in human life. The article has two specific aims: (a) to present pedagogical strategies for the teaching of phenomenological method to psychology students, and (b) to present an introduction to the methodology of phenomenological research. What are we actually doing when attempting to conduct this kind of "scientific" research? More importantly, how do we teach others to do what it has taken our whole career to learn? The history of the development of phenomenological method in psychology is traced from its roots at Duquesne in the early 1970s to its further implementation at the University of Dallas over the past 45 years. The "workshop" approach to teaching qualitative inquiry is explored, along with the phenomenological and hermeneutic principles underlying the analysis of verbal self-report data. Formulating a research question, distinguishing the research phenomenon from the situation interrogated, engaging in direct "intuitive contact" with the phenomenon, reflexivity with respect to one's biases and presuppositions, the carrying-out of intentional analyses, and "deep listening" to the testimonies of others will be presented and illustrated with examples taken from research workshops.
The introductory psychology textbook is the first place one might look to assess the "impact" of a particular school or approach on the development of psychology as a whole. In fact, the impact of the humanistic movement on psychology as an academic institution might be operationally defined as its representation in introductory texts. After all, notwithstanding the particular biases of an author, these introductory texts are generally aimed at giving well balanced, comprehensive coverage of the field at large, if for no other reason than to assure the marketability of the text.When I was a teaching assistant 15 years ago, I was dismayed by the rather poor representation of humanistic, existential, and phenomenological approaches in psychology textbooks. Authors would generally throw in a few paragraphs on Maslow and Rogers in chapters on personality and psychotherapy, and leave it at that. For the past seven years I've taught psychology in a department where we use all primary sources, so I've been generally out of touch with introductory texts. I was eager, then, to survey recently published texts to discover the impact of humanistic approaches which have blossomed over the past 15 years. Certainly the advances made
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