This is the first book on Buber to address the full scope of his seminal influence for any number of thinkers and fields from philosophy to psychotherapy to literary theory.

The purpose of this phenomenological study is to describe the experience of enduring marriage in mid-life. The literature reveals a lack of research about contemporary mid-life marriage, reflecting only theoretical pieces and research studies on marital happiness, factors that make a marriage successful, and variables contributing to divorce. Noticeably absent are studies conducted from a phenomenological philosophical perspective. Questioning what enduring marriage involves for individuals in mid-life served to orient the researchers to the meaning of the experience. Seventeen volunteers participated (...) in twenty-six initial and follow-up interviews. Using van Manen's methodological structure of human science research, a composite description that reflects enduring marriage in mid-life emerged. Two essential themes that characterize the experience, The Threads that Bind Us and A Season of Change and seven sub-themes explicating these essential themes portray the partnership of enduring mid-life marriage. The themes that comprise the structure of the experience reflect its form as a relational, time-space, and corporeal phenomenon. The findings are described in detail using narrative description in order to offer a rich account of each theme, and the implications provide a direction for future research. (shrink)

This book, the first of its kind, is a systematic and broad-based attempt to bring to psychology the intriguing work of French phenomenologist, Emmanuel Levinas. Because contemporary psychology, in its adherence to the philosophical and methodological underpinnings of naturalistic science, too often abandons questions about morality and ethical obligation, Levinas's writings about the experience of the face of the Other and the ethical obligation therein become particularly relevant. In ten original essays by distinguished scholars -- some philosophers, some clinicians, and (...) some academic psychologists -- the potential and the experiential impact of Levinas's work in the understanding of our fundamental human nature and the practice of psychotherapy are explored. Ultimately, the intention is to create a new discipline of psychology: namely, a 'science of the ethical.'. (shrink)