Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 1984, 25, 51-63

Introduction to phenomenological psychological research

JENNIFER BULLINGTON and GUNNAR KARLSSON
Department of Psychology, University of Stockholm. Stockholm, Sweden

Bullington. J. & Karlsson, G . : Introduction to phenomenological psychological research.

Scandinmian Journal of Psychology, 1984.25, 51-63.
This report presents an introduction to phenomenological psychological research. A brief
theoretical section on Husserls phenomenological philosophy is followed by a comparison
between phenomenological psychology and traditional psychology and a tutorial example
of the phenomenological method in psychological research. The authors argue for the
necessity of a phenomenological descriptive approach to psychological research which
seeks to discover the meaning of various phenomena using the descriptions of subjects
experiences. The results of a phenomenological psychological study consist of a structural
description of the phenomenon in question, which basically describes the what and how of
a specific phenomenon rather than the explanatory why.

G . Karlsson. Department of Psychology, University of Stockholm. S-106 91 Stockholm,

Sweden.

INTRODUCTION TO HUSSERLS PHENOMENOLOGY

Phenomenology started with the works of Edmund Husserl. For that reason we will begin
our dicussion with Husserls phenomenology, at least briefly, in order to introduce the
main topic of this paper; phenomenological psychology. We will try to show how a
philosophical grounding in phenomenology can be the basis for an empirical human
science (as opposed to a natural scientific) approach to psychology.
Phenomenology is the systematic investigation of subjectivity. Subjectivity, for Husserl,
was the indubitable ground of experience; that I am now having the experience of seeing a
blue thing, for example, is lived with a certitude I cannot doubt. The aim of phenomenology is to study the world as it appears to us in and through consciousness. This is a radical
move away from the objective sciences which take as their subject matter the so-called
objective reality of the world, which is supposed to exist independently of consciousness and subjectivity. Phenomenology wishes to examine the very ground of such a world,
which is precisely consciousness and human subjectivity. Husserls point concerning the
natural sciences was that although the objective world described by physics and
chemistry is a derived, constructed world, science wishes to place this constructed world
as prior or more real than the subjectively lived world. Husserl did not wish to
disparage the findings of the natural sciences, but he maintained that they have no place in
phenomenology, which places lived experience prior to scientific formulations abour lived
experience. It is for this reason that phenomenology makes no use of natural scientific
methods as such. Because our subject matter as phenomenologists is prior to scientific
formulations about an objective world, we cannot use these very formulations to
account for our field of inquiry. If we wish to study consciousness and subjectivity, we
cannot begin by assuming the objective reality of the world which consciousness itself
posits. In order to study the realm of subjectivity, Husserl had to develop a completely
new method, which he called the phenomenological reduction.
THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL REDUCTION
The reduction is the cornerstone of phenomenology. Before we can begin our analyses of
consciousness, we must perform the reduction in order to take ourselves out of the

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"natural attitude". The natural attitude is the way we take for granted the existence of a
transcendent world, which seems to exist independently of consciousness. This attitude
has a long philosophical history; it underlies all natural scientific causal explanations of
perception and cognition. Basically, it asserts that there exists a world which impinges on
me (my "mind") and caicses me to have this or that experience (sensation). We may
further describe the natural attitude as the way in which the world seems to spread itself
out before us, apparently indifferent to our intending to it. In short, the natural attitude is
our belief in the existence of the real, transcendent world. It is called the "natural"
attitude because it is our unreflective, natural way of being in the world. To believe in the
reality character of the world has its roots in the very nature of perception itself. "To have
something real primordially given, and to 'become aware' of it and 'perceive' it in simple
intuition are one and the same thing" (Husserl, 1962, p. 45, first published in German
1913). When we perform the phenomenological reduction, it is this belief in the reality
character of the world which we must suspend, or "bracket". It is not that we doubt the
existence of the world (for my direct experience informs me that the world, of course, is
always there), but by putting the transcendent object in brackets, we are able to underline
the way in which the object appears to consciousness. Thus, the reduction is not a
destruction of the world, but rather, a way in which to focus upon the constituting of the
world.
According to Husserl, every such phenomenological reduction can also be an eidetic
reduction. An eidetic reduction is the move from the world of facts (or particulars) to the
world of intended invariant meanings (or essences). Briefly, the eidetic reduction is our
natural ability to intuit or prereflectively grasp the essence of a thing through its particulars. Every phenomenological reduction aims ultimately at an eidetic reduction, but every
eidetic reduction need not be a phenomenological reduction. We may grasp essences
through particulars in the natural attitude. However, every time we perform a phenomenological reduction and attempt to do phenomenology, we must make this eidetic move as
well. To sum up. in the natural attitude the world that lies in front of us conceals the acts of
consciousness which posit the world. In the phenomenological attitude (by implementing
the phenomenological reduction) we can discover two poles of consciousness; noesis and
noema, which make up the most unique feature of consciousness; namely, intentionality.
Basically, "intentionality" means that consciousness is always consciousness of something.
Let us assume that we have now performed the phenomenological reduction. Under the
reduction we can discern two poles of experience: the subjective pole which Husserl calls
noesis-the acts of consciousness, and we also discover the correlate of every conscious
act, which Husserl calls the noema-the object as intended, as meant, as perceived.
Noesis always refers to the positing acts, or in metaphorical language, to the "streaming"
of consciousness towards the world. On the other hand, the noema refers to that-which-ispositeaintended. The noematic pole is that which we used to call the "real world" in the
natural attitude. Husserl's analyses show that what we used to call the "real object"
presents itself to consciousness as a flowing of views, each one flowing and blending into
the next. For this reason we can also call the noema a "system of appearances". To clarify
the noema with an example, let us say that I now have the experience of this cup in front of
me. What my perceptual experience gives me is a perspectival view of the cup from here
and now. I can now see the front of the cup. I perceive that it is round, although I cannot
see the back of the cup. As I move around the cup, I can now see the back, which I could
not see before. All these perspectival views point to a whole beyond any one perspective.
This whole, this system of appearances is the noema. These appearances mutually confirm
one another and go together coherently to give me the whole cup at once. This is a paradox

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of perception: that consciousness gives us a flow of apperearances which seem to point to

a self-same object which furthermore seems to be independent of appearance. In short,
consciousness gives us appearances which seem to be independent of their appearances!
And how is this possible? Here we have an example of a phenomenological formulation of
a problem of perception which could never arise were we to simply assume the reality
character of the self-same cup. In a similar way, phenomenology seeks to investigate
various noetic and noematic phenomena which unfold under the reduction.
A word must be said here about methodology. Husserl was uncompromising about the
special or unique character of phenomenological investigations. Because phenomenology
wishes to study the foundations of the natural attitude, it cannot use methods in its
research which are based upon the natural attitude. Over and above developing a rigorous
phenomenological method, phenomenology needs also, necessarily, to develop a new
language, since it is mapping out entirely new territory. Phenomenology may need to
borrow language from the natural attitude, but it must be sure to formulate its own
pehnomenological meanings for these terms. Husserl states in Ideas I Moreover, we may
make this quite general remark, that in the beginnings of phenomenology all concepts or
terms must in a certain sense remain fluid, always prepared to refine upon their previous
meanings in sympathy with the progress made in the analysis of consciousness and the
knowledge of new phenomenological stratifications, and to recognize in what at first to our
best insight appeared an undifferentiated unity (Husserl, 1962, p. 224). Thus phenomenology proposes an open ended project. As phenomenologists we must be willing to be
surprised at what we may find, and be open to further penetrations into the nature of our
findings. So, given this proviso, how specifically do we carry out our research? We use a
technique developed by Husserl called imaginary uariarion in order to arrive at essences
of phenomena. We use reflection, under the reduction, to discover (not invent or construct) the meaning of phenomena as they present themselves to consciousness.

IMAGINARY VARIATION
What is an essence? Briefly, an essence is what makes a thing what it is and not some
other thing. Imaginary variation is a way of asking through reflective imagination what
would I have to vary (alter) about this thing in order that it would cease to be what it is?
Husserls perceptual example of color may help to clarify what imaginary vanation is. We
ask ourselves, can we imagine color extended in space over 10 m2? Yes we can. Can we
imagine color extended in space over 10 cm2? Yes we can. Can we imagine color without
extension? No, we cannot. So, we see that an essential aspect of color is that it must be
extended in space. Our method of arriving at essences is to vary the parameters of a
phenomenon in our imagination until we arrive at the limit case. What the reader may have
noticed at this point is the subjective nature of this process. It is true that imaginary
variation is based upon individuals intutions. However, Husserl claimed that the grasping
of essences is an immediate grasping (intution) which is grasped with a certitude which lies
beyond individual idiosyncrasies. Were someone to say to Husserl I can imagine a color
without extension in space Husserl would reply that either this person is denying his own
experience of color, or he has simply not understood what extension and space
mean. It must be stated here that essences are not inferred or deduced, they are spontaneous affirmations which partake of experiential certitude. Husserl is always speaking of the
way phenomena appear to consciousness-as-such. He is likewise speaking of essences
which are graspable by any consciousness. We shall see later on that this is the place
where phenomenological psychology must deviate from Husserls philosophical transcen-

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dental phenomenology. But for now, suflice to say that all essences are grasped under the
reduction by means of imaginary variation and are direct, intuitive affirmations.
PHENOMENOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY VS. TRADITIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
Before we go into the method and subject matter of phenomenological psychology, we
would like to briefly contrast phenomenological psychology with traditional psychology.
By traditional psychology we refer to the experimental tradition in psychology dating
from W. Wundt. Wundts aspiration in seeking to establish psychology as a natural science
remains even today in contemporary psychologys scientific ideals. Such ideals are
reflected in the so called objective method which psychology adopted from the natural
sciences. Due to the successes made in physics and chemistry, psychology believed that
by adopting their quantitative method, psychology could establish its credibility in the
academic community. The natural scientific project was to explain phenomena in terms of
causal laws. Consequently, traditional psychologys guiding principle was also to explain
psychic phenomena following the principles laid out by the natural sciences. A phenomenon w a s thought to be relevant to the study of psychology only if it could be measured
and tested in some way by these natural scientific means. The contrived laboratory
conditions which became synonymous with psychological research had less and less in
common with everyday, lived experiences of human subjects. In this way the bias of a
methodology came to eclipse the psychologists interest in phenomena which were inaccessible through this method, such as the study of consciousness and subjectivity. The
psychologist as a natural scientist seeks to discover or invent abstract, explanatory causal
connections between events to account for psychological phenomena. The human being is
observed as a thing among other things, disregarding the unique psychological status of the
human being. Such physicalistic models move away from concrete subjective experiences
into abstract, derived formulas, which are often unrecognizable in the subjects naive
experience (Giorgi, 1970~).
Phenomenological psychology takes its approach from philosophical phenomenology. In
adopting Husserls to the things themselves, phenomenological psychology seeks to
develop a rigorous scientific method which would enable the researcher to thematize or
make explicit the immediate lived experience of a phenomenon, as it is lived, without
resorting to ad hoc, superimposed theories about phenomena. Such an aim brought about
a qualitative, descriptive method. This method uses: (1) subjects naive, spontaneous
descriptions of phenomena, (2) the psychological phenomenological analysis of the data
and (3) the community of researchers as a collaborative pool. Comparable to the verification of results in the quantitative approach, we find in the qualitative phenomenological
method, the phenomenological criterion of spontaneous, intuitive assent upon reading the
findings of a phenomenological study. Researchers present their findings to each other, to
the community, and sometimes to the subjects themselves. The problem of subjective
bias does not arise for phenomenological psychology in its traditional formulation, since
phenomenology recognizes the subjectivity of the researcher as the very access to the
meanings and themes which constitute the qualitative, descriptive findings. However, the
phenomenological psychological researcher should always be on guard against natural
attitude presuppositions which may not have been properly thematized and bracketed by
the researchers reduction. The criteria for a piece of phenomenological psychological
research are: ( a ) fidelity to the phenomena and (b) a rigorous phenomenological reduction.
Thus, phenomenological psychology as a human science (as opposed to a natural
science) takes fidelity to the phenomenon as it is lived as its guiding principle in the
formulation of a method. Phenomenological psychologys approach does not equate being

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scientific with being naturally scientific. Rather than necessarily transforming meanings into quantitative expressions, as natural science does, phenomenological psychology
seeks to affirm and elucidate the pre-reflectively lived world. Given that the researcher has
followed these directives, what is the nature of phenomenological psychologys data? It is
the meaningful, descriptive expression of the subject which will provide the researcher
with the themes and generalities concerning lived phenomena.
Phenomenological psychology, true to its phenomenological origins, sees the world as
already replete with meanings. These meanings are lived everyday, yet may remain
implicit and unthematized. Phenomenological psychological research seeks to make explicit and thematic these unreflectively lived meanings. Even in traditional psychological
research we may see how these lived meanings are operating; for example, when the
researcher sets up an experiment, decides to investigate this or that phenomenon, change
this or that variable etc. Such an eidetic (essential) understanding must be present in any
researcher, for how else would he have any direction to his research? Such meanings and
eidetic understandings are not explicitely acknowledged in traditional psychological research. The traditional researcher in psychology is himself using intuitions and eidetic
understandings without the rigor of the phenomenological reduction.
The phenomenological psychologist does not concern himself unduly with facts
because he chooses to stay at the level of meaning. His emphasis is always upon the
meaning-for-subject of a phenomenon, whether that phenomenon happened once or one
hundred times, at home, or at work etc. In reading 10 descriptions (protocols) from
different subjects on anxiety, for example, the researcher will undoubtedly find a variety
of situations in which anxiety occurred. However, he will also find a common theme or
structure of the meaning of anxiety which will arise from the analysis of these different
protocols. For example, although he may find that anxiety was experienced at school, at
work or on a vacation, he does not necessarily imbue these facts with psychological
meaning. What may emerge from the study as important, could be, for example, that in all
these situations the subjects were experiencing an insecurity about their capability to do
something that mattered to them. As phenomenological psychologists we do not hypothesize beforehand about what psychological constituents or meanings we will find, but we
do allow our intutions to pick out thematically relevant material from the protocols. We
may use, just for an example, the above fictional constituent of insecurity rather than
at school at work on vacation because we intuitively grasp its thematic significance from the totality of the protocol and the synthesis of all 10 protocols. Because of the
insistence upon the priority of meaning, phenomenological psychology considers the
natural scientific accumulation of facts to be an inappropriate task for our purposes. No
matter how numerous the facts may be, no matter how sophisticated our techniques of
measuring become, facts cannot leap across the abyss into meanings. As Sartre put
it, In short, psychologists do not realize that it is just as impossible to get essence by
accumulating accidents (facts our comment) as to reach 1 by adding figures to the right of
0.99 (Sartre, 1948, p. 5).
A common misunderstanding of phenomenological psychology is to confuse it with
introspectionism (Wundt & Titchner). Briefly, the differences between introspectionism
and phenomenological psychology can be enumerated as follows:
(1) In classical introspectionism, the S is asked to observe his impressions upon
receiving certain stimuli. He is asked to reduce his impressions to the simplest elements
such as sensations, feelings, images and to locate their attributes such as intensity,
duration etc. Phenomenological psychology rules out any such assumptions about the
nature of mindconsciousness.
(2) In introspectionism, the S is asked to stick to the facts and not to include any

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meanings he may associate with the stimuli, whereas phenomenological psychology is

precisely interested in the study of these meanings.
(3) The S in introspectionistic experiments had to be well trained in order to know what
kinds of self-observations were acceptable to the researcher. For phenomenological
purposes, the S is asked to freely report upon all his experiences pertaining to the
phenomenon in question and uncensored descriptions from subjects are the raw data for
phenomenological psychology.
Another school of psychology which is often associated with phenomenological psychology is gestalt psychology. Although there are similarities between the two, the relationship is a complex one, and there is no real agreement among phenomenologists about
gestalt psychologys relationship to phenomenology. It is beyond the scope of this paper to
describe the differences here in detail. However, a few words may be said about the main
difference between the two approaches. While gestalt psychology does place an emphasis
upon wholes-as-given (as opposed to the traditional atomistic psychology), gestalt psychology maintains the superiority and priority of physicalistic causes of psychological experiences. They remain in a natural attitude insofar as they embrace objectivistic theories
about phenomenon (See Merleau-Ponty, 1963).
PHENOMENOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGYS METHOD
At this point we would like to demonstrate the specific method used in a phenomenological
psychological undertaking. Although Husserl himself worked mainly with phenomenological transcendental philosophy, he did allow that a phenomenological psychology running
parallel to his philosophy was possible. The difference between phenomenological philosophy and phenomenological psychology has to do with the two different bracketings or
reductions. Under the philosophical or transcendental reduction, both the object pole
(world) and the subject pole (consciousness) are derealized or bracketed. This enabled
Husserl to study consciousness-as-such; not any particular consciousness, but the structures necessary and sufficient for any consciousness. What remains after the transcendental reduction is the transcendental ego. This is the positing ego; that is, the ego which
constitutes both the world and the mundane, situated ego. For example, in the phrase I
am aware of myself winning a game ofchess. Husserldistinguishes between two different
egos. I refers to the transcendental ego, while the second ego, myself, is the
psychological, mundane ego which is situated in the world. This psychological ego is
perspectival and present to consciousness in and through its appearances, just like any
other mundane object. There is a debate within the phenomenological movement about the
possibility and validity of a transcendental, purely reflective ego which lies outside both
the world and the psychological ego. Our main interest as psychologists, however, is the
second ego, the mundane, psychologically situated ego. This is the ego which remembers,
desires, has wishes and fears etc. In the case of the psychological phenomenological
bracketing, we bracket the object pole (we put its reality status into suspension), but we
leave the psychological ego exactly as it is in the world. We do not suspend its particularities because this is what we wish to study. We are interested in this situated ego which has
desires and fears. The psychological phenomenological reduction takes us out of the
natural attitude by subsuming the object under subjectivity (object-as-meant) and leaves us
with a situated consciousness intending meanings. From Husserls standpoint (which
claims the validity of a transcendental ego), we as phenomenological psychologists must
admit the following paradox: The I which we study (the myself ) which constitutes
the world is also itself situated in the world. It is both constiuting and constituted. We find
no difficulty in accepting this premise because our interests are not philosophical. For our

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purposes, we need only to discover the meanings which are intended by the situated ego in
their psychological significations.
A common confusion about the phenomenological method concerns the researchers
use of intuitions to arrive at a theoretically unbiased understanding of the data (textprotoc d ) . How is a theoretically unbiased understanding possible? In order to understand
such a notion, we must first become clear about what a theory is. According to FQlesdal
and Walloe, a theory is a set of propositions whose inter relatedness is made explicit. It is
therefore characteristic of a theory that it makes clear how the different propositions
which are included in it depend upon each other (F#llesdal & Wall0e, 1977, p. 53, our
translation from Norwegian). The theory becomes the basis upon which the data is
analyzed. What is important here is that the final comprehension of the data on the part of
the researcher is dependent upon these previously formulated propositions. As phenomenological psychologists, we maintain that we d o not make any use of theories in our
understanding of the data. This does not mean, of course, that the researcher confronts his
data as a blank; we are not unbiased in the sense that we can transcend language and
culture. But to be in a culture and partake of its common preunderstandings and meaningful expressions is not the same thing as to assert and attempt to prove constructed models
or theories. For example, take the experience of reading a novel. If one reflects upon ones
own experience, we think everyone would agree that the understanding of what one has
read does not depend upon theories (in the above defined sense) about what one has
read. Rather, the reader of the text already shares a common world with the author which
enables him to grasp the meaning of the text. To say that the reader has understood
what he has read is to assume the possibility of expressing and grasping meanings through
the medium of a shared culture and language.
We have chosen to call the researchers grasping of meaning in the subjects descriptions intuition sticking to the language of Husserl (1962). However, our intuition is
not Husserls intuition of grasping essences (transcendental philosophy), but is grounded
in language and culture and is therefore an intuition of a hermeneutical kind. (See Ricoeur
1981, Titelman 1979.)
At this point we shall address the question; what kind of results do we come up with in
our research? Whereas Husserl discovered essences, phenomenological psychology discovers psychological signif cations (generalities). These psychological significations or
meaning constituents are the themes which emerge as the structure of a lived psychological phenomenon. A structure understood phenomenologically is that common
thread which runs through unique manifestations of the same phenomenon. A meaning
constituent discovered in a protocol analysis of a psychological phenomenon would be a
part of the phenomenon in interaction with other parts or constituents which in turn
make up the phenomenon in question. It is thus not the case that the phenomenological
psychologist merely points out disjointed, unrelated significations, but rather, he seeks to
discover the way in which parts or constituents of a protocol relate to one another in a
gestalt. This gestalt we call a general structure. It may also turn out that we find two or
more gestalts which we call typologies of the same phenomenon. We will demonstrate
in practice how our analyses proceed. The following method was developed by Amedeo
Giorgi at Duquesne University (see Ciorgi, 19706, 1975, Wertz, in press).
EXAMPLE O F T H E PHENOMENOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGICAL METHOD
The raw data for our studies consist of reports (descriptions) given by subjects of their
experiences of a given phenomenon. The format of such descriptions can be gathered as
retrospective protocols (running narrative), interviews, or think-aloud protocols. In this

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paper we will address retrospective protocol analysis, although the method of analysis
applies to any type of text. Phenomenological psychology does not exclude the laboratory
set up per se, but the laboratory situation would be used in a phenomenological way:
namely, the subjects own description of his experience while going through the experiment would constitute our data. For purposes of clarity, we will from now on describe our
method as it applies to a retrospective protocol obtained from one subject.
After having decided what we wish to investigate, we approach subjects with the
following instructions: Describe a situation in which you felt . . . (in this case lonely).
Describe the situation, how you felt and what you did in as much detail as possible.
Include all details which come to your mind. Describe it in as much detail so that someone
who has never had the experience would understand it after your description. A good
protocol is one which is free from psychological jargon or other privileged disciplinary
biases. Such a protocol would be a spontaneous recounting of lived experience, rather
than a self-reflective, explanatory account. We present the following loneliness protocol
and thereafter the following analysis which will be used in our discussion to illustrate the
method.
This situation happened to me sometime in the recent past, and the circumstances surrounding it were
that the person I was living with had moved back to New York, and he told me that he was going to
call me at I I .OO on this particular Sunday night to let me know what had happened with him in New
York. 1 myself had been out of town and had come back earlier on this particular Sunday. Upon my
arrival I discovered that my landlord was putting in a heating unit, and the apartment w a s torn apart,
it was cold. 1 looked around and saw all his things laying around the apartment. just exactly where he
had left them. I didnt feel at home in the apartment. I felt very uprooted. Without him, I didnt feel
like I belonged here. I tried to read earlier in the evening, but I couldnt concentrate. 1 kept looking at
the clock anticipating his phone call. He didnt call at I 1 . 0 0 . I tried to continue to read. He didnt call
at 11.15, at 11-30 or at 11.45. By 12.00 1 was getting upset, and by 12.15 I felt just horrible. This was a
very crucial phone call for our relationship. I hadnt had any contact with him since he left for New
York a week ago or so. By this time in the evening 1 was afraid that he didnt care about me, this one
person whom Id been devoting myself to, at the cost of all others, didnt care about me. I looked
around the room, and I thought about living alone here in Y . and 1 thought. I havent got a friend
in the world. I tried to think of my friends, I thought, there are people other than this person who
know you. you have friends, you have a family. But at that moment they didnt seem real to me. I
couldnt shake the feeling that I was hopelessly alone. For a while I considered calling his grandmother in New York,in case something terrible had happened to him. But since it was past midnight and I
figured it was too late to call, I gave up the idea. And besides I still thought he would call. I paced
through the apartment, wringing my hands and feeling very physically agitated. He finally called me at
1.00 at night. I felt furious a t him, but after we talked some I felt calmed down and at home with
myself again.

...

We divide our analysis of the protocol into 5 steps for pedagogical purposes. Different
researchers may vary the method by a step or two, but in essence the phenomenological
psychological analysis contains the following 5 steps.
Step I
Our first step is to perform the phenomenological reduction. For our purposes, as
psychologists, we wish to read the text with an open, theoretically unbiased attitude.
However, we must maintain a psychological focus of interest as we read. (We do not, for
example, read this protocol on loneliness as a sociological text.) We read the text through,
as many times as necessary in order to get a grasp of the whole text in light of the
particular phenomenon we are investigating. We proceed from initial readings to a more
systematic reading where we focus upon discriminating the meaning units that emerge
from the text. Breaking up the text into meaning units constitutes step 2.

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Step 2

Meaning unit discriminations are divisions of the entire running text into discrete units of
meaning each of which can stand on its own as expressing relevant meaning. We have a
sense already of what is relevant by having read the text a number of times. We mark
these meaning unit divisions directly on the description in those places where we sense a
shift in the meaning in the expression of the subject, or a transformation of the situation.
Consider the following excerpt from our loneliness protocol as an example of a naturally
occurring break in meaning:
I myself had been out of town and had come back earlier on this particular Sunday. Upon my arrival, 1
discovered that my landlord was putting in a heating unit, and the apartment w a s tom apart, it was
cold.() I looked around and saw all his things laying around the apartment, just excactly as he had
left them.(5)

We divided the meaning unit as we did because the first two sentences, although they
contain several ideas, both express one psychological meaning, which we could summarize as the subjects relation to the state of the apartment (4). The last sentence contains a
new psychological meaning, namely, the introduction of the absent other into the cold,
disarranged apartment (5). We do not interpret these breaks in meaning, we do not
impose them, but we do allow our intuitions to guide our understanding of the shifts in
meaning which spontaneously emerge upon reading the protocol.
Step 3

Step number three is the transformation of these meaning units from the language of the
subject into the researchers language, which focuses upon the significations expressed in
relation to the phenomenon under investigation. Here a word must be said about the
language we use as phenomenological researchers. As has been hinted at, phenomenology
started out without having any read-made language. This pertains to phenomenological
psychology as well. The language that we use as researchers, first of all, reflects the
understanding of the whole protocol. Thus we can let the understanding of the entire
protocol influence the transformations of a particular meaning unit. There are no laws or
rules about the use of the language, but one should, of course, be mindful not to use a
language that has vague or multiple connotations. The community to whom one addresses
the study is another factor to take into account in the choice of the researcher language. If
it is phenomenological community one is addressing, there may be certain expressions
which have a meaning for them, but not for another audience, and vice versa. The use of
an expert language can often be dangerous. For instance, the expression neurotic
compulsion is obviously theoretically loaded. This is why a naive, everyday language is
preferable until we have created a bias free, descriptive vocabulary. The difficulty in
communicating our results (phenomenological structures) is cited by De Boer:
Ordinary language is completely attuned to the sphere of normal interests, i.e. to objects, and can
describe adequately only this primary objectivity. The phenomenologist must use words that are
attuned to the natural attitude. In other words, the unnatural reflective thought-stance is forced to
speak the language of the natural direction of thought. This, of course. causes certain difficulties in
communication. One condition for understanding a phenomenological analysis is that one must be
able to transpose himself into the typical phenomenological attitude .. . (1978, p. 130).

As we transform the language of the subject into the researchers language, we d o not seek
to make the subjects expressions conform to any prior hypothesized psychological
constructs. By remaining open to the description, we allow ourselves to be surprised by
whatever constituents we may find in a protocol. Our transformations into the language of
the researcher is necessary to our project because the descriptions of the subjects lived

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experiences are not primarily psychological (nor primarily sociological, biological etc.). It
is the project of phenomenological psychology to tease out the psychological meanings.
We must go beyond phenomenal level (what is directly lived) to the phenomenological
level (in our example, the psychological logos of loneliness). The subjects descriptions are
phenomenal in that they describe what is directly and unreflectively lived. The phenomenological move is that reflective stance taken under the reduction which uses phenomenal
descriptions in order to arrive at a structural understanding of experience; the logos of
phenomena. We present only the first five meaning unit transformations here for reasons
of brevity.
Constituents present in description
1. This situation happened to S in the recent
past.

2. S states that the person she was living with

moved back to New York.
3. The other had made plans with S to call her
on a particular day at a particular time to tell
S what had happened with him in New York.
4. S herself had been out of town and amved at
the apt. on the day of the phone call. S discovered that the apt. was tom apart by landlord repairs. It was cold.
5 . S looked around the apt. and saw all of this
persons things laying around, just exactly
where he had left them.

Constituents of description expressed in

terms revelatory of loneliness
1 . ............................................................
2. S stated that the circumstances of this occasion of loneliness centered around the absence of a significant other with whom S had
been living. This other left the S and moved
back to where he he had been living sometime
prior to living with S.
3. S and the other had made plans (a pledge or
promise) that the other would call S on the
phone at a particular time on a particular
night. S expected to find out from this phone
call what had happened 10 the other since
they last saw each other.
4. S came back from out of town to this apt.
where she and the other had lived together,
on the day of the phone call. Upon amval S
found the apt. in an unexpected state of disarray due to repairs being performed in her
absence.
5. S furthermore experienced the apt. as reminding her of the absent other.

We keep the subjects language (slightly modified, I changed to subject etc.) on the
left hand side and put our transformations directly opposite on the right, to ensure that we
do not lose sight of the subjects original expressions.
We use descriptions of experiences as access into the structure of phenomena, which by
definition must be a more narrow, abstract description. It must be remembered that the
only framework the phenomenological psychologist uses in making his transformations is
to trace out the implicit (or in some cases, explicit) meanings which he finds in the
protocol(s) themselves. The researcher makes no use of theoretical models because they
merely hinder his discovering what the protocol has to offer. Psychological sensitivity on
the part of the researcher is used to elucidate rather than define the phenomenon being
investigated. For example, we take the subjects language here: I looked around and saw
all his things laying around the apartment, just exactly where he had left them and
transform it into: S furthermore experienced the apartment as reminding her of the
absent other. We include the word furthermore here because in the overall context of
this protocol, this sentence follows directly a sentence about the Ss feeling disoriented
and cold in the apartment. Besides being cold and tom apart, the apartment furthermore
reminded her of the absent other. Both meaning units (4 and 5 ) taken together reveal the
Ss reaction to being in that apartment then, under those particular conditions. We arrived
at our transformation here by asking ourselves in imaginary variation, what did it mean in
the context of the entire protocol that the subject looked around and saw all his things

Scand J

Psycho1 25 (1984)

Phenomenological psychology

laying around the apartment, just exactly where he had left them? Does she mean that
this state of disarray created an extra cleaning burden for her? Such a transformation is not
substantiated in the text. Could her sentence mean that she experienced anger towards the
absent other for not cleaning up his things before he left? Possibly, but we must always
return to the language of the subject. We intuit that the phrase just exactly where he left
them does not express anger. The transformations take on their significance in relation to
the entire protocol on loneliness.
Step 4

Our next step as researchers is to synthesize our transformed meanings units into a
situated structure, which reads like a synopsis of the specific meaning constituents found
in the protocol. A structure, we recall, is a gestalt-like contexture in which the parts
(meaning constituents) relate to each other in an interdependent way. T h u s , the full
understanding of a phenomenon is not the result of a mere enumeration of constituents,
but rather, the way in which each constituent relates to each other constituent. As can be
seen below, the situated stmcture is a running text of the transformed meaning units. In
order to reach this structure, the researcher may omit or shift the transformed meaning
units in order to best express psychological significations. He may also wish to refer back
to the raw data ( S s language) at this point in order to ensure that nothing has been
overlooked. The situated structure is the analysis of Qne protocol in its specificness. In this
way we have at our disposal an easy-to-read, coherently organized text to compare with
our other protocols in the same study.
We present here the complete situated structure of the loneliness protocol we have used
as an example.
Loneliness for this subject was experienced when S returned to an apartment where she had been
living with a recently departed, significant other. The Ss experience of the apartment as being in a
state of disarray contributed to the Ss feeling that she was not at home. (This word contributed is an example of the way phenomenological psychology is sometimes forced to use everyday
language to express meaningful associations which we have no phenomenologically descriptive word
for at this time.) The perception of the others possessions still left in the apartment reminded the S of
the absence of this other. The other had made an agreement (a pledge) to call the S on a particular
night at a particular time. S experienced time, as she was in the apartment, as pointing towards the
expected phone call. This was a crucial phone call for their relationship. When the other had not
called at the appointed time nor after a certain period of waiting, S felt that this other did not
reciprocate her care and devotion. S began to imagine her future without this other. S felt herself to be
in a world without friends. S was unable to make her friends and family real. The only reality for S at
that moment was the unrealized phone call and the absent others lack of care for her. S could not
herself actively investigate why the other had failed to call her (by calling his relative) because she felt
that it was too late to call. She felt physically agitated as she waited passively for this phone call.
When the phone call finally arrived, S expressed anger towards the other, but eventually regained her
feeling of being at home with herself in the apartment.

Step 5
Our final step, then is to move from a collection of situated structures (many protocols of
the same phenomenon written by different subjects) to what we call a general structure
(see below), which incorporates those essential constituents of a phenomenon which run
across all the situated structures. However, it may turn out that we cannot collapse all our
situated structures under one general structure. In such a case we find various types of
the phenomenon which we call typologies. We prefer, in these cases, to write out
general typologies rather than attempt to force the data under one general structure. Our
criterion for making typologies rather than one general structure concerns the nature of the
specific constituent(s) in question. If those constituents differ in an essential way from the

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J . Bullington and G. Karlsson

Scand J Psycho1 25 (1984)

other protocols, we would be doing violence to the spirit of phenomenology to exclude or

ignore those protocols which do not fit with the others. What we find in typologies are
varied structures of the same phenomenon which demand to be treated separately and in
their own right. It should be stated that before the researcher decides upon typologies on
the basis of one or more errant constituent(s1, he should return to the raw data to ensure
that he did not overlook those essentially different constituents in the other protocols.
Although in practice we do not move from one situated structure to a general structure,
we found it necessary to do so here for didactic reasons. Even this single protocol
analysis, however, can reveal for us a fuller understanding of what loneliness is. Our
general structure reads as follows:
Ss loneliness refers to the absence of a specific significant person. Other people are not able to
compensate for the absence of the missed person. The S feels at a loss (not at home) until contact
can be made with the absent other. S fells a detachment from the world and is not able to share her
loneliness with friends or family. S experiences that the action which is required to abate the
loneliness has to be initialed by the absent other. This passivity is justified by an internalization of
norms that makes Ss situation unchangeable, as far as the Ss sense of initiative is concerned.

Our general structure tells us that loneliness in this protocol w a s more than the factual
absence of the person whom the subject missed. We found that this one protocol expressed a psychological constituent of passivity which was lived by the subject as a
waiting. What the subject called a waiting we may term passivity because our
position as researchers allows us to step back reflectively and view her entire protocol as
an expression of loneliness. We saw how her passivity w a s manifested in her inability to
call friends and relatives, her unwillingness to actively investigate the reason for the delay
of the call, and finally, her entire temporal experience expressed a passivity in that her
present was focused upon the call which would amve in the future. We furthermore saw a
connection between the passivity constituent and what we called an internalization of
norms (phenomenally lived as the Ss justification for her continuing to wait) which was
expressed by the subject as it was too late to call the grandmother.
Hopefully this brief discussion has provided the reader with a basis for further thought
and discussion. Our results (as any other scientific results) point to further thematizations
and investigations. Even in our general structures we come up with findings which open up
a field for further reflections and research.
We would like to thank Amedeo Giorgi, Carl Lesche, William Phillips, Ola Svenson and anonymous
reviewers for discussions and valuable comments on earlier drafts. This study was supported by a
grant to Ola Svenson from the Swedish Council for Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences.

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