Phenomenology (Philosophical)
Abstract
Phenomenology is a philosophical tradition that deals with fundamental philosophical problems but also has relevance for clinical psychology. Edmund Husserl (1859 -1938) defined phenomenological method in terms of an investigation of consciousness and intentionality. His noncausal notion of motivation, which portrays the person as a being intentionally related to her surrounding world and striving towards the realization of meaning, can serve as a premise for psychology as a human science. Later thinkers, like Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) and Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-80), developed an existential phenomenology. Others, like Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-61), shifted the focus to embodied experience and set the stage for more contemporary encounters with cognitive science. Throughout this history, psychologists and psychiatrists, like Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) and Ludwig Binswanger (1881-1966), found useful phenomenological insights and distinctions that inform clinical practice.
Publication Title
Encyclopedia of Clinical Psychology
Recommended Citation
Vincini, S., & Gallagher, S. (2015). Phenomenology (Philosophical). Encyclopedia of Clinical Psychology, 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118625392.wbecp330
