Phenomenology in nursing research: reflection based on Heidegger’s hermeneutics

Raúl Fernando Guerrero-Castañeda,Tânia Maria De Oliva Menezes,Marta Lenise Do Prado

doi:10.1590/2177-9465-ean-2019-0059

Abstract

Abstract Objective: To reflect on the use of phenomenological analysis in nursing research through the hermeneutical circle of Martin Heidegger. Method: Theoretical reflection based on Martin Heidegger’s concepts through literature review. Results: Phenomenology is a philosophical referential to address lived phenomena; Heidegger emphasizes the essence of being in the world bound in experiences, the hermeneutical circle is a methodological referential of analysis to understand the world lived by the being through a pre-understanding; an understanding and an interpretation to reveal the essence of the phenomenon. Conclusions and implications for practice: Nursing can make use the hermeneutic circle to understand, from a philosophical view, the phenomena in the language of those who experience them, to unveil them and to understand the subjectivity of care.

Highlights

INTRODUCTIONThe human being is immersed in the world, every lived moment or experience in which he/she is immersed does not separate from him/her, but on the contrary, it makes him/her recreate and travel through the world which becomes intentional in order to change with him/her
Phenomenology is a philosophical referential to address lived phenomena; Heidegger emphasizes the essence of being in the world bound in experiences, the hermeneutical circle is a methodological referential of analysis to understand the world lived by the being through a pre-understanding; an understanding and an interpretation to reveal the essence of the phenomenon
Phenomenology began by evoking the “going to things themselves”[1], giving way to phenomenology allows to reveal the phenomena in the description of them as they appear in the human being, phenomenology takes a turn in the sense that the description is such, this description would remain in a simple experience as empiricism can affirm; this experience implies that the human being is inside a world, within a context, to be able to meet him/her, he/she must already have an understanding of him/herself, an interpretation; this is not a single description of the human being in the lived experience, but rather it has already led to a process of a dependent individual analysis of his/her relationship with the world, that relationship is intimate and unitary.[2,3]

Summary

INTRODUCTION

The human being is immersed in the world, every lived moment or experience in which he/she is immersed does not separate from him/her, but on the contrary, it makes him/her recreate and travel through the world which becomes intentional in order to change with him/her. Heidegger’s phenomenology shows a relationship of the human being with his/her world, hereafter he/she described the term Dasein, that means there-being, it is, a human being in the world approached by him/herself in every experience of his/her life, which can be brought to consciousness by him/herself and that can express through language.[4,5] This phenomenology is considered existentialist, because it has the essential reason of the human being which is manifested in his/her daily existence, that reason of being involves the ontology itself, the essence of each being.

METHOD

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR