The Interpreted World

An Introduction to Phenomenological Psychology

Ernesto Spinelli

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2005
• ISBN:
  9781446236963
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Psicologia
• Subtopic: Consulenza psicoterapeutica

Praise for First Edition:

`This book is highly recommended to a wide range of people as a clear and systematic introduction to phenomenological psychology... the book has set the stage for possible new colloquia between the phenomenological and other approaches in psychology? - Changes

`As a trainee interested in matters existential, I have been put off in the past by the long-winded and confusing texts usually available in academic libraries. Thankfully, here is a text that remedies that situation... [it] provides a readable and insightful account? - Clinical Psychology Forum

?Spinelli?s classic introduction to phenomenology should be essential reading on all person-centred, existential and humanistic trainings, and any other counselling or psychotherapy course which aims to help students develop an in-depth understanding of human lived-experience. This book is sure to remain a key text for many years to come? - Mick Cooper, Senior Lecturer in Counselling, University of Strathclyde

?This is by far the most monumental, erudite, comprehensive, authoritative case that Existentialism and Phenomenology (a) have a rightful place in the academy; (b) are tough-minded bodies of thought; (c) have rigorous scientific foundations; (d) bequeath a distinctive school of psychotherapy and counselling; and (e) are just as good as the more established systems of psychology? - Alvin R. Mahrer, Ph.D. University of Ottawa, Canada, Author of The Complete Guide To Experiential Psychotherapy

?This book?s rich insight into the lacunae of modern psychological thinking illustrates the contribution that existential phenomenology can make to founding a coherently mature Psychology that is both fully human(e) and responsibly ?scientific? in the best sense of that term? - Richard House, Ph.D., Magdalen Medical Practice, Norwich; Steiner Waldorf teacher.

The Interpreted World, Second Edition, is a welcome introduction to phenomenological psychology, an area of psychology which has its roots in notoriously difficult philosophical literature.

Writing in a highly accessible, jargon-free style, Ernesto Spinelli traces the philosophical origins of phenomenological theory and presents phenomenological perspectives on central topics in psychology - perception, social cognition and the self. He compares the phenomenological approach with other major contemporary psychological approaches, pointing up areas of divergence and convergence with these systems. He also examines implications of phenomenology for the precepts and process of psychotherapy.

For the Second Edition, a new chapter on phenomenological research has been added in which the author focuses on the contribution of phenomenology in relation to contemporary scientific enquiry. He describes the methodology used in phenomenological research and illustrates the approach through an actual research study.

The Interpreted World, Second Editio n demystifies an exciting branch of psychology, making its insights available to all students of psychology, psychotherapy and counselling.

1

An Introduction to Phenomenological Theory

Pure logical thinking cannot yield us any knowledge of the empirical world; all knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it.

A. Einstein, P. Podolsky, N. Rosen

As human beings, we attempt to make sense of all our experiences. We strive to impose meaning upon the world. In our awareness and acceptance of this immense capacity, we are led, ineluctably, to an underlying issue that poses perhaps the most basic of all philosophical questions: What is real? At first, the answer to such a question might seem to be absurdly simple to provide, and indicative of the unnecessarily pedantic obscurity of much that passes as philosophical enquiry.

A typical reply to such a question might proceed in the following manner: if I look around my room, I see (among other objects) books, a desk, a chair, a pen. Similarly, I can look out of my window and observe people walking down the street, other houses, flowers, shrubs, trees and so forth. All these things are real to me in that I believe them to be independent of my consciousness. If I were to die suddenly at this moment, I assume that these objects would continue to exist since I view them as having an existence that is separate to my own. Their physical properties and their independent existence lead me to declare them as being real.

This theory of reality, which the vast majority of us in the West take to be so patently obvious that we imagine it to be not theory but fact, has led us to posit the existence of an objective reality. The notion of an objective reality adopts the view that there are real objects in the world that exist independently of our conscious knowledge or awareness of them. In addition, it argues that we have direct access to them through our brain and senses. Whether organic or man-made, they exist as separate entities, separate structures. What we perceive as being ‘out there’ is actually there; it is objectively real.

Like much of modern philosophy, the system known as phenomenology questions this viewpoint in an attempt to clarify it. It asks us first to consider the possible assumptions and biases that have led us to our conclusion so that we may be more certain of its accuracy. As a result of such probing, representatives of scientific fields as diverse as cognitive science, neurophysiology, sociology, theoretical physics and psychology have arrived at an intriguing, not to say disturbing, conclusion (Farber, 1962).

Stated simply, this conclusion argues that true reality is, and will forever remain, both unknown and unknowable to us. Instead, that which we term reality, that is, that which is experienced by us as being real, is inextricably linked to our mental processes in general, and, in particular, to our in-built, innate human species capacity to construct meaning.

This view is the starting point to phenomenological enquiry.

The Origins of Phenomenology

The term ‘phenomenology’ is partly derived from the Greek word phainomenon (plural: phainomena). Phainomenon literally means ‘appearance’, that is, ‘that which shows itself’. Philosophers generally define ‘phenomena’ to mean ‘the appearances of things, as contrasted with the things themselves as they really are’. The world, as we experience it, is a phenomenal world.

Immanuel Kant, who remains among the most influential of the post-Classical Western philosophers, took as the cornerstone of his philosophical speculations precisely this contrast and argued from it that our mind cannot ever know the thing itself (‘the noumenon’, to employ Kant’s terminology), but can only know it as it appears to us – the phenomenon. As such, the true nature of reality, for Kant, was not only far from being obvious, it was beyond our ability to understand and to experience directly.

Although the term ‘phenomenology’ was coined in the mid-eighteenth century, and several noteworthy philosophers (such as Kant, Hegel and Marx) employed it at various times in the course of their writings, the philosophical school known to us as phenomenology only originated in the early years of the twentieth century.

When Edmund Husserl (1859–1938), its founder, adopted the term, he supplied it with new meaning and significance. Husserl wanted nothing less than to develop a science of phenomena that would clarify how objects are experienced and present themselves to our consciousness. Husserl’s hope and stated aim was ‘to reform philosophy, and … to establish a rigorously scientific philosophy, which could provide a firm basis for all other sciences’ (Misiak and Sexton, 1973: 6).

In an attempt to fulfill this aim, Husserl developed an approach to investigation that is generally known as the phenomenological method. Husserl was not its inventor, nor can it be said that he was the first philosopher to employ it, but he refined and specified its conditions and purpose, and raised the method to the status of a fundamental philosophical procedure that would become the cornerstone of his approach.

As we will see in the following chapter, the phenomenological method focuses on the data (or phenomena) of consciousness in order to clarify their role in the process of meaning-construction, and, as well, attempts to set them aside – or ‘bracket’ them – in order to arrive at a more adequate (if still necessarily incomplete) knowledge of reality.

Transcendental and Existential Phenomenology

Husserl’s attempts form the basis of one strand of phenomenology – transcendental phenomenology – of which he remains the most prominent exponent. However, it would be wrong to identify all of phenomenology as being solely, or even principally, Husserlian. Of equal, if not greater, philosophical and psychological significance is the second major branch known as existential phenomenology (or, more commonly, existentialism), that was principally influenced by the writings of Husserl’s university assistant, Martin Heidegger (1889–1976).

As such, it is more helpful and accurate to consider phenomenology not strictly as a school of thought possessing a set body of agreed-upon tenets, but, rather, as an investigative approach that encompasses a variety of similarly focused perspectives whose shared concerns are directed towards a methodologically structured investigation of our experience of the world.

I will consider the main ideas that impact upon psychology from both of these major strands of phenomenology in this text. For the moment, however, let us remain with the Husserlian transcendental strand since, as well as historically preceding existential phenomenology, it supplies us with the central arguments presented by phenomenologists on the issue of reality.

The Phenomenological View of Reality

As I stated at the beginning of this chapter, the objects that we perceive (including, of course, the people, or others in general with whom we interact, as well as ourselves) exist, in the way that they exist, through the meanings that each of us gives them.

For example, the book that you are currently reading appears to you to be real, you see it as being separate, inhabiting a different space to that which you inhabit; it is a concrete entity. In your meaning system, it is ‘a book’. But what is it really? If, for some inexplicable reason, your vocabulary, your language, your meaning system, were suddenly to be deprived of the meaningful term ‘book’, what would it be that you held in your hands? What is it that you would perceive? It would certainly be ‘something’, but the definition or meaning given to that ‘something’ would have as much to do with you, and the meaning system that you employ, as it would have with the thing itself.

Phenomenologists argue that this interpretational process must be acknowledged in our statements about reality. Indeed, phenomenologists suggest that, in our everyday experience of reality, this process is to all intents and purposes indivisible from the reality being perceived. Reality, as far as each of us experiences it, is this process.

That our interpretations of reality turn out to be seemingly more or less correct is dependent upon any number of factors. For instance, they may be correct or incorrect only insofar as one culture has provided a different meaning system to that imposed by another culture for the object being perceived.

So, for example, were I a representative from a Stone Age society, who is confronted, suddenly, with an object which you, as a representative of your society, have labelled as being ‘a book’, it would be highly unlikely that I, too, would label it in the same way. I would certainly perceive ‘something’, but my interpretation might be that the object was some type of weapon, or a rather unusual stone, or perhaps even a previously unseen food product.

Whose interpretation is the correct one? Whose reality is truly real? For each of us, the object would have a reality that was dependent upon our meaning-derived interpretation of it. As such, to argue the case for a non-interpetatively-derived ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’ statement of reality is highly misleading. Our conclusions are relative – based as they are upon a number of variables, including those of socio-cultural diversity. Ours is a phenomenal reality, and, as such, it remains open to a multiplicity of interpretations.

Nevertheless, though phenomenologists avoid terms like ‘correct’ and ‘incorrect’ when considering interpretations of reality, they still recognize that, at times, the meanings construed by individuals will be at great variance with those which (to some degree at least) are shared by others – perhaps even the majority of others.

For example, an individual suffering from what could be termed ‘paranoid delusions’ might imagine, indeed might be convinced, that the nurse who was coming to provide him with medication is actually about to make an attempt upon his life. Not surprisingly, he might take steps to avoid the danger. This interpretation might be judged as being wrong, or even ‘crazy’, by the nurse, or by most other people. Would not phenomenologists be shown to be unnecessarily pedantic if they were to argue otherwise?

The Problem of ‘Correct’ Interpretations of Reality

Phenomenologists deny the possibility of any final or completely ‘correct’ interpretations since such would presuppose that we had direct knowledge of an ultimate reality. But we do not; our interpretations, far from being certain, remain open to alternatives in meaning. What most of us term a ‘correct’ interpretation is not based upon external, objective laws or ‘truths’ that have been universally ascertained. Rather, our judgement is influenced, to a great degree, by consensus viewpoints agreed upon by a group of individuals, or by a whole culture.

If we return to my example of the person suffering from paranoid delusions and deliberate upon the issue phenomenologically, we would note that, like that person, we have also carried out an act of interpretation that led to an imposed meaning upon our experience. We are likely to have assumed, for instance, that our experience is in some way normal, that our perceptive faculties are in some way superior, more in touch with what we have labelled ‘reality’, than those of the person suffering from paranoid delusions. Our studies, our background, our teachings and lessons as counselling or clinical psychologists and psychotherapists, have given us the knowledge to interpret behaviour as being normal or abnormal; it is this knowledge that now makes meaningful for us the extraordinary behaviour of this person. Our stance assumes that our conclusions are not based upon interpretations of reality but are accurate reflections of objective reality.

Phenomenologists would argue that such a stance is likely to prevent useful, constructive communication and interaction with our ‘paranoid’ patient. Indeed, initially at least, our dismissal of his interpretation would almost certainly lead him to be further convinced of the ‘correctness’ of his stance. This is not to say that phenomenologically-oriented psychotherapists would not initiate some form of ‘intervention’. However, as I will seek to show in Chapter 8, any such interventions would not be based upon mistaken assumptions concerning ‘correct’ interpretations of reality.

A phenomenological view does not deny that, to some degree, many of us do, indeed, partially share similar interpretations of reality. Important research demonstrating just how much we do share in our mental frameworks and models of experience is available in abundance and is not being discounted nor disputed. Indeed, phenomenologists place equal importance upon structured investigations that seek to clarify our understanding of the interpretative invariant structures shared by all members of our species. From a phenomenological perspective, it is these invariant structures that provide the foundational bases upon, or set of conditions through which, our unique interpretations of reality are formed.

All that is being argued for now is that, regardless of how singular or generally shared our interpretations of the world may seem to be, they remain interpretations.

Meaningless Experience

Any behaviour that at first appears to us as being inexplicable, or meaningless, is disturbing to us; it is a basic aversive stimulus. Its meaning must be uncovered so that, in our ability to explain, we can relax mentally. So long as the meaning or explanation we provide for our experience is suitable or acceptable to us as an explanation, it will be able to remove or, at least, reduce the disturbance we experience.

Let me provide an example in order to make this point as clear as I can. Imagine that you are looking at a surrealist painting. Let us say it is that famous painting Time Transfixed by Magritte which, among other things, depicts a train emerging from a fireplace. Looking at it, the first question that springs to mind might be: ‘what is this painting about? What does it mean?’

In an attempt to answer this question, you might construct any number of hypotheses and theories that focus on the symbolic significance of the objects in the painting. You might conclude for example, that the train represented Magritte’s penis, that the fireplace in some way evoked memories in Magritte of his mother, and of his relationship with her, and that, therefore, the painting was an expression of a universal Oedipal complex.

Alternatively, you might approach the problem from another angle. You might argue that the painting was, in fact, about the role of perspective in Western art, and that this was Magritte’s attempt to explain its rules in the most original of ways.

Whatever the explanation would be (and there have been many forthcoming!), in the end, your conclusions as to the meaning of the painting would be dependent on which interpretations were satisfactory enough to reduce the tension you experienced as a result of your confrontation with meaninglessness.

Let me take things a step further. What would happen if you were unable to provide a satisfactory or acceptable meaning to your experience? Imagine now that, instead of looking at a painting by Magritte, you are standing in front of an abstract painting, and that, like many people, you dislike abstract art. When asked why, you explain that it’s because you don’t understand it, or because you don’t know what it’s supposed to mean, or because you can’t see why abstract painters don’t employ figurative elements with which to make their statements. All you see are colours and vague shapes that have no meaning.

Due to the growing anxiety and irritation that this meaningless experience evokes, you might declare that abstract art is, in some way, less acceptable, or less worthy, than figurative art. Indeed, you might go so far as to declare that it might not be ‘art’ at all and, hence, that your inability to find its meaning is because there is no meaning to it to begin with. This conclusion would itself be a meaningful explanation – and, if accepted, would remove or reduce the tension being experienced.

Alternatively, you might conclude that there was, indeed, a meaning to the painting but that you were incapable, at this point in time, of discerning it. The assumption of a currently hidden meaning open to future revelation would be enough to reduce tension, at least temporarily.

Meaning, then, is implicit in our experience of reality. We cannot tolerate meaninglessness. Through a variety of in-built species invariants and experientially derived mental frameworks, we attempt to stamp our experiences with meaning. Once again, however, it is important to remember that, whatever the meaning arrived at, it cannot be concluded that it is a final true or ‘correct’ reflection of reality.

Subjective versus Objective Reality

At this point, readers might well be concerned that the phenomenological argument is leading to the conclusion that reality is a purely subjective process. That is, that nothing other than mental constructs exists. Is this what phenomenologists conclude?

The recurring controversy concerning the separation between external reality and subjective consciousness, and how the two might interact within each of us, has plagued Western philosophy and psychology for centuries. For some, objects exist independent of the mind; for others, nothing exists other than the mind. Psychologists and philosophers have tended to side with one viewpoint or the other. ...