Despite a long history of researchers who combine phenomenology with qualitative or quantitative methods, there are only few examples of working with a phenomenological mixed method—a method where phenomenology informs both qualitative and quantitative data generation, analysis, and interpretation. Researchers have argued that in working with a phenomenological mixed method, there should be mutual constraint and enlightenment between the qualitative and quantitative methods for studying consciousness. In this article, we discuss what a framework for phenomenological mixed methods could look like (...) and we aim to provide guidance of how to work within such framework. We are inspired by resources coming from research in mixed methods and existing examples of phenomenological mixed-method research. We also present three cases of phenomenological mixed methods where we study complex social phenomena and discuss the process of how we conducted the studies. From both the research inspiration and our own studies, we depict the landscape of possibilities available for those interested in mixing phenomenology with qualitative and quantitative methods, as well as the challenges and common pitfalls that researchers face. To navigate in this landscape, we develop a three-fold structure, focusing on the phenomenological frame, the phenomenologically informed generation of qualitative and quantitative data, and the phenomenologically informed analysis and interpretation of data. (shrink)

The relationship between traumatic experiences and subsequent distress is not well understood, and little research focuses on the lived experience of psychological trauma. I draw on Louis Sass’s phenomenological taxonomy to address this lacuna. I present his differentiation between relations of phenomenological causality and implication and demonstrate that his taxonomy can be applied to experiences of trauma. Relations of phenomenological causality and implication can be identified in the genesis and constitution of post-traumatic distress. My adaptation of Sass’s taxonomy will furthermore (...) offer an extension and development of his account, applying it to the study of post-traumatic experiences and elaborating it in the process. I shall demonstrate that whether experiences occur synchronically or diachronically is not essential to their categorization in terms of phenomenological implication and causality, respectively. I will show that an alteration in perception or behavior post trauma might temporally succeed the traumatizing event while, at the same time, being implied in the experience of the event. Thereby, I demonstrate how phenomenology may contribute to a detailed understanding of experiences of trauma. Scrutiny of traumatic experiences furthermore promises to contribute to the philosophical discourse on causality, implication, and temporal experience. (shrink)

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by severe disturbances in a subject’s sense of identity. Persons with BPD suffer from recurrent feelings of emptiness, a lack of self-feeling, and painful incoherence, especially regarding their own desires, how they see and feel about others, their life goals, or the roles to which they commit themselves. Over the past decade or so, clinical psychologists, psychotherapists, and psychiatrists have turned to philosophical conceptions of selfhood to better understand the borderline-specific ruptures in the sense (...) of identity, which are frequently associated with severe affective instability and turbulence in interpersonal relationships. Fuchs (2007) has suggested that these disturbances in self-experience can best be described and explained by using notions—widely discussed in philosophy and psychology—ofnarrativityandnarrative identity. On such a narrative view, key features of BPD present significant modifications of proto-narrative structures and inhibit the development of a narrative identity, resulting in a disturbed sense of identity. Although the role of narrativity in BPD has been acknowledged by many researchers, some have voiced dissatisfaction with what they take to be limitations of a narrativistic understanding of the disorders of identity characterizing BPD, and have proposed alternative, allegedly non-narrativistic, accounts. In this paper, we critically examine an example of the latter, viz. Gold and Kyratsous’ (2017) account ofthe person as an intrapersonal team reasoner. We defend a narrativistic understanding of BPD identity disorder against their objections. To this end, we propose a broader, and more finely-differentiated, concept of narrativity. On this account, four aspects of narrativity are distinguished, the disordering of which can affect those with BPD. As it turns out, our account implies that even Gold and Kyratsous—in order to ground their approach—must either make use of these aspects or propose an as-yet unarticulated alternative. This casts doubt upon whether their approach is non-narrativistic after all. (shrink)

Emotion Review, Volume 14, Issue 4, Page 233-243, October 2022. This special section of Emotion Review is devoted to the discussion of a recent philosophical emotion theory, the theory of emotions as affective position-takings. The aims of the special section are to provide readers with a spotlight view of recent research in the philosophy of emotion, to advance emotion theory, and support the interdisciplinary dialogue. To increase the accessibility of the special section texts to a nonphilosophical readership, we first discuss (...) the relationship between the philosophy and the psychology of emotions and give a brief review the main types of theories of emotional experience. (shrink)

Presumably, everyone has, at some point in their lives, felt lonely. Loneliness is, in that particular sense, omnipresent. What it feels like to be lonely can, however, vary significantly. Loneliness is far from being a homogeneous phenomenon. Different kinds of loneliness need to be distinguished, considering its causes, contexts, a person’s capacities to cope with it, and many other factors. This paper introduces the notion of a specific kind of loneliness: experiential loneliness. Experiential loneliness, it will be argued, consists in (...) particular ways of experiencing the world, oneself, and others. Although feelings of being lonely in one way or another can emanate from one’s experience of the world being structured in a particular manner, such kinds of loneliness need not—at least, not always and the whole time—lead to emotional feelings that are concerned with one’s loneliness or the lack of meaningful social relationship. Loneliness can give rise to quite different emotional feelings that sometimes even cover up their provenience from underlying experiential loneliness. The notion of experiential loneliness, it is suggested, helps to tie back certain styles of thinking, desires, feelings, and behaviors to contexts of loneliness. Moreover, it will be argued that the notion can also elucidate the development of feelings of being lonely in contexts in which others are not only around but also available. To develop and enrich the notion of experiential loneliness as well as to exemplify its usefulness, a closer look will be taken at the case of borderline personality disorder, a condition in which sufferers are often plagued by loneliness. (shrink)

Whether, and in what sense, research in phenomenology and phenomenological psychopathology has—in addition to its descriptive and hermeneutic value—explanatory power is somewhat controversial. This paper shows why it is legitimate to recognize such explanatory power. To this end, the paper analyzes two central concerns underlying the debate about explanation in phenomenology: (a) the warning against reductionism, which is implicit in a conception of causal explanation exclusively based on models of natural/physical causation; and (b) the warning against top-down generalizations, which neglect (...) the specificity of the individual. While acknowledging that these two caveats express serious concerns regarding the debate on explanatory models, I show that phenomenology has the resources to respond to them. These can be found in analyses of different types of causation relating to different regions of reality and in the structure of explanatory models based on exemplarity. On the basis of these analyses, I defend a pluralist account vis-à-vis explanatory models. (shrink)