Reflections on the tensions between openness and method in experientially oriented research and psychotherapy

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article, as a phenomenological psychologist, researcher, and professor I offer reflections on the six articles that make up this special edition of the Journal. I respond to each in some detail, addressing issues around the challenges of using phenomenological methods, understanding them adequately, and the challenge of finding ways of studying phenomena systematically while also remaining retaining an attitude of humility about our capacity to arrive at understandings that do justice to the accounts of research participants. I have found that the most productive dialogues take place when there is a mixture of agreement and disagreement allowing for a clarification of one’s own understanding and point of view as one takes into account and struggles with perspectives that that one had not previously encountered. This has very much been the case for me in this instance.