Phenomenological Insights Research Articles

Autoignition temperature trends for various chemical families

Autoignition temperature (AIT) data in the literature are frequently disparate and have high uncertainties. Examining the trend of AIT for chemical families that have well-defined homologous series can allow evaluation for internal consistency and provide phenomenological insight into the mechanisms that produce the observed trends, allowing engineers to better predict AIT for increasingly exotic compounds. The trend for the normal alkanes is well-studied and serves as a limiting case for other chemical families. A comprehensive examination of AIT trends for several chemical families reveals differences from the normal alkane family trend. AIT values from experimental measurements are presented and used, with literature values, to establish trends for several single-functional group chemical families, as well as propose and discuss phenomenological explanations for observed differences. Broader implications for these trends are also discussed along with best practices for evaluating and measuring AIT.

Emotions of the pandemic: phenomenological perspectives

This article provides an introduction to the special issue “Emotions of the Pandemic: Phenomenological Perspectives”. We begin by outlining how phenomenological research can illuminate various forms of emotional experience associated with the exceptional circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, we propose that a consideration of pandemic experience, in all its complexity and diversity, has the potential to yield wider-ranging phenomenological insights. We go on to discuss the thirteen contributions that follow, identifying common themes and points of complementarity.

The “Phenomenon” in Mamardashvili’s Phenomenology of Ontological Maturation

Abstract In the essay, I present the basic principles of Merab Mamardashvili’s phenomenology of ontological maturation. Though Mamardashvili’s thinking has been recently introduced to the West, there is still very little awareness of the uniqueness of his phenomenological insights, allowing him to illuminate contemporary philosophy’s central ontological and existential matters in a novel light. The essay addresses Mamardashvili’s interpretation of the “phenomenon,” which he exemplifies on rich experiential material from Proust’s novel In Search of Lost Time. The “phenomenon” is shown to differ radically from its traditional phenomenological interpretation as something that gives/shows itself in/for experience. Instead, the phenomenon is interpreted as an event that shocks one unexpectedly and offers a momentary opportunity to let oneself be appropriated by that truth, constituting the event of being human. I explicate the relations between Mamardashvili’s notion of the phenomenon, human transformation, and ontology. The central theme of these discussions is a new sense of human agency and autonomy revealed as the goal of transformation and requiring that one walks a path of ontological maturation.

Numerical and experimental investigations on manufacturability of Al–Si–10Mg thin wall structures made by LB-PBF

Thin Wall Structures (TWS) have applications in many fields of physics and engineering. Laser-Based Powder Bed Fusion (LB-PBF) is a free-form fabrication that can easily produce the TWS in a single production step. However, due to the thin nature of this component and the interaction of thermal forces on the lateral surface, the chance of defects such as cracks and distortion is high. Therefore, this research aims to investigate the effect of power, inclination angle and the number of laser passes upon dimensional (thickness) deviation, distortion and porosity of TWS made by LB-PBF. Investigating the mentioned parameters is useful to determine the capability of LB-PBF to produce Al–Si–10Mg​ TWS as well as manufacturability of these structures. To identify the effect of inclination angle, number of laser passes and laser power on dimensional deviation, distortion and porosity a full factorial Design of Experiments (DOE) has been selected. To discuss the results statistical analyses and simulation of LB-PBF are implemented. Simulations have been carried out using computational fluid dynamic software (Flow-3D V12) and the depth and width of the meltpool are predicted. The obtained dimensions of the melt-track are then generalised based on the thickness of the TWS to confirm the accuracy of the simulation. The related rheological features of LB-PBF in the production of TWS are characterised and discussed from the results of the simulations. In this paper, the first experimentally validated simulation and experimentation of thin-walled surfaces are carried out with different inclination angles and the number of laser pass to identify the effect of these control factors, on dimensional deviation, distortion and porosity for the TWS. The meltpool phenomena for the thin wall structure are identified by fundamental rheological aspects and thermophysical properties of the material. Manufacturability and porosity are quantified for these conditions of interest, thereby providing fundamental phenomenological insight combined with practical design data for the application of TWS in LB-PBF. Results of this research show that the inclination angle and the number of laser passes in LB-PBF strongly drive the meltpool features, wall thickness, distortion and porosity. In LB-PBF of TWS, by changing the inclination angle the number of laser passes, the porosity, distortion and dimensional accuracy can be controlled.

Which Kind of Body in "Mental" Pathologies? Phenomenological Insights on the Nature of the Disrupted Self.

Guided by a phenomenological perspective, this paper aims to account for the existence of a corporeal consciousness-something that clinicians should take into account, not merely in the case of physical pathologies but especially in the case of mental disorders. Firstly, I will highlight three cases: schizophrenia, depression, and autism spectrum disorder. Then, I will show how these cases correspond to three different kinds of bodily existence: disembodiment (in the case of schizophrenia), chrematization (in melancholic depression), and dyssynchrony (in the autism spectrum disorder). Finally, I will argue for the importance of an "expressive common environment" between the patient and the clinician, who are two distinct, embodied conscious subjects resonating with one another. In this view, the primary goal of the therapeutic process seems to develop a shared understanding of the patient's life-world, which finds its main expression through the disrupted body.

What is Phenomenological Bioethics? A Critical Appraisal of Its Ends and Means.

In recent years the phenomenological approach to bioethics has been rejuvenated and reformulated by, among others, the Swedish philosopher Fredrik Svenaeus. Building on the now-relatively mainstream phenomenological approach to health and illness, Svenaeus has sought to bring phenomenological insights to bear on the bioethical enterprise, with a view to critiquing and refining the "philosophical anthropology" presupposed by the latter. This article offers a critical but sympathetic analysis of Svenaeus' efforts, focusing on both his conception of the ends of phenomenological bioethics and the predominantly Heideggerian means he employs. Doing so reveals certain problems with both. I argue that the main aim of phenomenological bioethics as set out by Svenaeus needs to be reformulated, and that there are important oversights in his approach to reaching this end. I conclude by arguing that to overcome the latter problem we should draw instead on the works of Max Scheler and Hans Jonas.

Chemotherapy, clocks, and the awareness of death: A quantitative phenomenological study.

Following a previous phenomenological study of lived time in ovarian cancer, this research aims to find how the frequency of chemotherapy affects orientation in time (the so-called "chemo-clock") and the awareness of mortality of service users with various cancers. For this purpose, a variation of a front-loaded phenomenological method that combines scientific hypothesis testing with phenomenological insights of both conceptual and qualitative nature was developed. The study is based on a purposive quota sample of 440 participants representative of the Polish cancer population in terms of sex (m:f ratio 1:1) and age (m > 65 = 61%; f > 65 = 53%) and undergoing chemotherapy for at least a month. The exposure environmental factors of interest are temporal: the frequency of chemotherapy [weekly (N = 150), biweekly (N = 146), and triweekly (N = 144)] and time since the beginning of treatment. The study confirms the relevance of the "chemo-clock"-participants use the pace of hospital appointments for orientation in time, and significantly more often when in triweekly treatments (weekly 38%; biweekly 61%; triweekly 69.4%; V = 0.242, p < 0.001, while neither age nor time since the beginning of treatment differentiate the usage of calendar categories and the "chemo-clock"). Simultaneously, chemotherapy increases their awareness of finitude, which again correlates neither with age nor time since the beginning of treatment but is significantly stronger in those with lower chemotherapy frequencies. Lower treatment frequencies are thus associated with its increased significance in terms of its impact on how people with cancer measure time and whether they increasingly consider their mortality.

Compelling Reasons

Compelling Reasons Tim Thornton, MA, MPhil, PhD, DLitt (bio) There are many compelling reasons to have an interest in the philosophy of/and psychiatry. In 1994, when persuaded by Bill Fulford to walk down the corridor at Warwick University to join in his teaching of what seemed a newly developing subject—against my protestations that I knew nothing about mental health care—my main interest was in the irreducibility of meaning to the 'realm of [natural scientific] law,' in Sellars's phrase. This had the bonus of complementing Bill's championing of the irreducibility and centrality of values in psychiatry. (It was only later we realized we disagreed about the not inconsequential issue of whether norms and values were subjective preferences or objective features of the world.) It seemed plausible to me that the irreducibility of the space of reasons to the realm of law might have interesting consequences for psychiatry. But mine was a purely disinterested academic interest. This is perhaps the usual approach to what is in part a professionalized academic subject with its formal rules for publication and dissemination of research. It has only been in the last decade that I have experienced things in a more personal way, following what I would term, though psychiatry would not, a nervous breakdown. My image of a breakdown came from reading Saul Bellow's novel Herzog. The titular Herzog has been left by his wife, cruelly, and retires from academic life to write letters. For example, to Heidegger. "Dear Doktor Professor Heidegger, I should like to know what you mean by the expression 'the fall into the quotidian.' When did this fall occur? Where were we standing when it happened?" I thought I would be able to maintain some sort of inquiring mind and write experientially grounded philosophy of psychiatry as a catharsis. I could study my own illness. This immediately proved a ridiculous hope. As a philosopher with a cognitivist bent—language, thought, and intentionality being guiding interests—I had always assumed that madness was only really a matter of what Jaspers calls 'primary delusions,' belief-like states that strain their belief-status, are hard for others to make sense of, and occur only with particularly severe forms of mental illness. But madness is also a matter of doing, saying and feeling as well as pure reasoning. What I would, previously and disinterestedly, have described as a dysregulation of emotional reactions turned out to transform my entire experience of the world and my ability to think rationally about it. I lost the ability to put my experiences into words. In truth, I lost all interest in that project. Only when not distressed could I take a view on my loss of world. Distressed, I did not understand myself. This is a neat illustration of epistemic disjunctivism. But it also highlights a challenge for, and some of the brilliance in those who have contributed to, the philosophy of mental health care, through their expertise by experience. While experience may be a necessary condition for particular forms of expertise, my own case reveals that it is not sufficient. Further, even an everyday and familiar mental illness (like my own) can render the articulation of experience, in a way that makes sense to others, very much harder. Hence the fact [End Page 11] that there is a thriving mental health service and patient movement, making their own experiences available to others combining first-person narratives with conceptual and phenomenological insight is both admirable and helps to set a part of PPP's future agenda: bringing first-person experience within a philosophically and clinically informed discipline. [End Page 12] Tim Thornton Tim Thornton, MA, MPhil, PhD, DLitt, is Professor of Philosophy and Mental Health and Mental Health and Deputy Head for Research in the School of Nursing at the University of Central Lancashire. As well as contemporary philosophy of thought and language, his research concerns conceptual issues at the heart of mental health care. He has published research papers on clinical judgement, idiographic and narrative understanding, the interpretation of psychopathology and reductionism and social constructionism in psychiatry. Copyright © 2023 Johns Hopkins University Press

The Destiny of Phenomenology: Gadamer on Value, Globalism, and the Growth of Being

The Destiny of Phenomenology: Gadamer on Value, Globalism, and the Growth of Being

Phenomenology as a resource for translational research in mental health: methodological trends, challenges and new directions.

This editorial reflects on current methodological trends in translational research in mental health. It aims to build a bridge between two fields that are frequently siloed off from each other: interventional research and phenomenologically informed research. Recent years have witnessed a revival of phenomenological approaches in mental health, often - but not only - as a means of connecting the subjective character of experience with neurobiological explanatory accounts of illness. Rich phenomenological knowledge accrued in schizophrenia, and wider psychosis research, has opened up new opportunities for improving prediction, early detection, diagnosis, prognostic stratification, treatment and ethics of care. Novel qualitative studies of delusions and hallucinations have challenged longstanding assumptions about their nature and meaning, uncovering highly complex subjective dimensions that are not adequately captured by quantitative methodologies. Interdisciplinary and participatory research efforts, informed by phenomenological insights, have prompted revisions of pre-established narratives of mental disorder dominated by a dysfunction framework and by researcher-centric outcome measures. Despite these recent advances, there has been relatively little effort to integrate and translate phenomenological insights across applied clinical research, with the goal of producing more meaningful, patient-valued results. It is our contention that phenomenological psychopathology - as the basic science of psychiatry - represents an important methodology for advancing evidence-based practices in mental health, and ultimately improving real-world outcomes. Setting this project into motion requires a greater emphasis on subjectivity and the structures of experience, more attention to the quality and patient-centredness of outcome measures, and the identification of treatment targets that matter most to patients.

A phenomenological insight into what final year undergraduate student nurses perceive is the role of the Registered Nurse and who they learn this from.

This paper considers the perceptions of 18 final year student nurses around their perception of the role of the nurse. A qualitative phenomenological research study was undertaken, with final year student nurses as the data source, undertaking semi-structured interviews from a United Kingdom Higher Education Institution. Data analysis was undertaken by using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Findings indicate that student nurses had little insight as to the role of the nurse when commencing the programme. Being on the programme has led them to understand there are many aspects of a nurse's role including, surprisingly for them, much responsibility. It was also found that a lot of the learning that takes place comes from working with healthcare assistants, and due to this, the student nurses perceive that the role of the modern nurse is task orientated and there is little holistic care. The future practice of this group of registrants may be affected depending on how they move forward with their role, alongside the holistic role of the nurse being detracted from. While phenomenology does not account for generalisations but does seek to illuminate this phenomenon; however if this view were to be shared globally, then the caring aspect of nursing may well be in danger of being lost. If this assumption of the role of the nurse is shared globally, then there are inevitably implications for the nursing profession, and more importantly patient care may be affected.

Commentary: A phenomenological insight into what final year undergraduate student nurses perceive is the role of the Registered Nurse and who they learn this from.

Commentary: A phenomenological insight into what final year undergraduate student nurses perceive is the role of the Registered Nurse and who they learn this from.

‘Getting a grip’? Phenomenological insights into handling work place in London’s Soho

How are working lives shaped by the demands and expectations associated with a particular workplace? And how are work identities enacted to demonstrate a capacity to cope with place-based demands, expectations and associations? Drawing on insights from phenomenological perspectives on space, place and situated experience, particularly Merleau-Ponty’s concept of ‘grip’, and interview data drawn from longitudinal research with men and women working in London’s Soho, this article shows how working lives and identities are situated within, and enacted through, practices that involve developing and demonstrating a capacity for place handling. The analysis shows how this is negotiated by those working in iconic locales in which their working lives and identities are shaped by meanings that are both evolving and enduring, and that require them to get and maintain a demonstrable grip on the setting in which they work. In contributing to a growing interest in understanding working lives as situated phenomena, the article challenges the idea that work is increasingly place-less, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the digitalization of work accelerated by it, emphasizing how where work takes place continues to matter to how it is enacted and experienced.

Cultivation of Humanity: How we can stagnate within the eternal flow

By introducing Taoism— the understanding of flow—and the meaning of cultivation as a basic human ability, an essential challenge in our current understanding of science can be discovered. Human interaction with nature is a meaningful process, which can reveal a better understanding of the inner cultivation processes and with it a multidimensional field of endless inputs triggering an ongoing process of growth. For this purpose, MyCu-cultivation ( My cultural cultivation) is introduced as new terminology. A construct that allows to separately elaborate the social concepts of culture and the process of metaphysical reality perception—generated in our mind. At the same time, the layers of physical experienced reality and imagination are reintroduced in an alternative interrelation, leading to new insights in the layers of metaphysical understandings. Therefore, the central manifestation of meaning-making will be elaborated through the metaphorical use of bookshelves, allowing to perceive new insights in the raw information processing of individuals—underlining the human limitations, in processing the overwhelming meaning flow. This theoretical knowledge leads us further to a new possibility of understanding the constructive externalization of the imagination, highlighting the diversity of phenomenological insights in our everyday life, resulting in a complex theoretical repositioning between semiotics, cultural psychology, and Naturwissenschaften.

Co-production to understand online help-seeking for young people experiencing emotional abuse and neglect: Building capabilities, adapting research methodology and evaluating involvement and impact.

Involving young people (YP) as co-researchers (YCoR) in mental health research is important for ethical and epistemological reasons. However, approaches to involve and evaluate 'meaningful involvement' in complex qualitative mental health research, and how to evaluate impacts (or change) for the co-researcher and the research is less well defined. This co-produced research explored the experiences of YP seeking help for emotional abuse and neglect via an online, peer-peer message board. This practical case study aims to evidence the meaningful role and impacts associated with YCoR involvement in sensitive and complex mental health research using a flexible approach to co-production. During the Covid-19 pandemic, we explored on- and off-line approaches and adapted research methodology to build relationships, knowledge, skills, and confidence withYCoR. The virtual involvement was evaluated against the five principles of co-production. Anonymous, continuous digital feedback, reflective practices and multiple dissemination outputs are used to evaluate the impact of the study on those involved and the research. Ten members of NeurOX Young People's Advisory Groupwere involved in the core project. Additional members were invited at later stages and in the dissemination of outputs. We describe a supportive, scaffolded learning approach to build capabilities and embed the lived experience of YCoR in complex qualitative research. A digital blended approach was acceptable to YCoR, principles of co-production were met and the impact/benefits of involvement are described. To demonstrate the epistemological value of involving YP we evidence YPs capabilities for involvement and the 'change' or contribution YCoR made to the research through reflective practices. This case study demonstrates how flexible approaches co-production with YCoR can be robust and responsive to balance ethical and epistemological impact in complex mental health research. Supportive, scaffolded practices and safe environments helped build the confidence and capacity of YCoRs to demonstrate valuable phenomenological insights in the analysis. YP's perspectives on how they describe 'meaningful' and impactful involvement illustrate the reciprocal benefits gained through working together. This case study describes the YCoR involvement throughout the research and dissemination of outputs. YCoR co-authors were involved in developing the outline and reviewing the draft stages of the manuscript.

Thinking Through Phenomena: Theatre Phenomenology in Theory and Practice

Thinking Through Phenomena: Theatre Phenomenology in Theory and Practice Andrew Sofer (bio) THEATRE AND PHENOMENOLOGY: MANUAL PHILOSOPHY. By Daniel Johnston. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017; pp. 210. KINESTHETIC SPECTATORSHIP IN THE THEATRE: PHENOMENOLOGY, COGNITION, MOVEMENT. By Stanton B. Garner Jr. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018; pp. 290. PERFORMANCE AND PHENOMENOLOGY: TRADITIONS AND TRANSFORMATIONS. Edited by Maaike Bleeker, Jon Foley Sherman, and Eirini Nedelkopoulou. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2015; pp. 264. PERFORMANCE PHENOMENOLOGY: TO THE THING ITSELF. Edited by Stuart Grant, Jodie McNeilly-Renaudie, and Matthew Wagner. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019; pp. 358. Phenomenology, a philosophical method founded by Edmund Husserl, brackets Kant’s things-in-themselves (noumena) in order to describe phenomena as they appear to human consciousness. Phenomenologists ask: How do we get behind our prefabricated concepts to what Husserl notoriously calls “the things themselves”?1 Theatre [End Page 389] also frees us from habitual perceptions and ontological presuppositions—what Husserl labels the “natural attitude.” And as Jacques Derrida and others have noted, something remarkably like Husserl’s famous phenomenological reduction (epochē) takes place in theatre when the houselights go down.2 Struck by this consonance, between 1980 and the mid-’90s first-wave theatre phenomenologists pioneered a versatile alternative to semiotic, materialist, and poststructuralist criticism that illuminated such topics as role-playing onstage (Bruce Wilshire); settings and furniture in Chekhov (Bert O. States); dramatic action (Alice Rayner); and the visual field in Beckett’s late plays (Stanton B. Garner Jr.).3 Meanwhile Phillip Zarrilli launched his decades-long exploration of the intercultural phenomenology of acting.4 In the past decade or so, second-wave theatre phenomenology has flourished both within and alongside the emergent fields of performance philosophy and performance as research.5 Two strains, roughly speaking, have emerged. The first pursues generalizable truths about aesthetic experience and favors the methodology and/or aims of classical phenomenology, however contested (Paul Ricoeur wittily defines phenomenology as “the sum of Husserl’s work and the heresies issuing from it”).6 As Stuart Grant usefully frames this approach, “[p]henomenology claims access to a fundamental-transcendental level of cognition, perception, intersubjectivity and being which would apply to all humans.”7 Some thinkers ally with recent cognitive neuroscience, which promises to validate or at least complement phenomenological insights (thereby inverting Husserl’s [End Page 390] original contention that science needs phenomenology, a science of sciences, to undergird its own shaky metaphysical assumptions).8 Classical phenomenology as a philosophical tradition suffers from a reputation for Teutonic obscurity, as well as from charges of white male essentialism and the denial of difference; that Heidegger became a Nazi who turned against his teacher Husserl did phenomenology’s reputation no favors. A second strain of contemporary theatre phenomenology privileges historically and/or culturally marginalized experiences, together with more personal modes of elucidation such as auto-ethnography and performative writing. Skeptical of transcultural human truths and transcendental perceptual structures, this camp overlaps with critical phenomenology: a broad movement that draws from feminist, critical race, disability, and queer and trans theories.9 In practice, many scholars have a foot in both camps; as far back as 2001, Garner observed that theatre phenomenology has been “a hybridized, dialogic investigation decidedly different from the ‘pure’ or transcendent phenomenology of its Husserlian origins.”10 The four books under consideration here span the full spectrum between hardline classicism and subjective experimentalism. Designed as an introductory textbook for theatre-makers, Daniel Johnston’s inviting and breezily written Theatre and Phenomenology: Manual Philosophy tends toward the latter, albeit placing its do-it-yourself pedagogical program within a traditionalist conceptual framework. Johnston takes up Heidegger’s investigation of what makes humans Dasein, creatures for whom Being occurs as a problem. For Johnston, phenomenology holds that “knowing is not the primary way in which humans experience the world” (103); freed from metaphysics, Heidegger’s “manual philosophy” (the phrase comes from Lucian of Samosata) returns us to things as we find them in the moment. As a practical philosophy, theatre exemplifies aletheia (truth) as process or Ereignis (“Event”): not a representation of some offstage world, but a process that brings Heideggerian Being itself into view. Phenomenology offers [End Page 391] student actors (and others) curious about their own...

Regularization in nonperturbative extensions of effective field theory

The process of renormalization in nonperturbative Hamiltonian effective field theory (HEFT) is examined in the $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}$-resonance scattering channel. As an extension of effective field theory incorporating the L\"uscher formalism, HEFT provides a bridge between the infinite-volume scattering data of experiment and the finite-volume spectrum of energy eigenstates in lattice QCD. HEFT also provides phenomenological insight into the basis-state composition of the finite-volume eigenstates via the state eigenvectors. The Hamiltonian matrix is made finite through the introduction of finite-range regularization. The extent to which the established features of this regularization scheme survive in HEFT is examined. In a single-channel $\ensuremath{\pi}N$ analysis, fits to experimental phase shifts withstand large variations in the regularization parameter $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}$, providing an opportunity to explore the sensitivity of the finite-volume spectrum and state composition on the regulator. While the L\"uscher formalism ensures the eigenvalues are insensitive to $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}$ variation in the single-channel case, the eigenstate composition varies with $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}$; the admission of short-distance interactions diminishes single-particle contributions to the states. In the two-channel $\ensuremath{\pi}N$, $\ensuremath{\pi}\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}$ analysis, $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}$ is restricted to a small range by the experimental data. Here the inelasticity is particularly sensitive to variations in $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}$ and its associated parameter set. This sensitivity is also manifest in the finite-volume spectrum for states near the opening of the $\ensuremath{\pi}\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}$ scattering channel. Future high-quality lattice QCD results will be able to discriminate $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}$, describe the inelasticity, and constrain a description of the basis-state composition of the energy eigenstates. Finally, HEFT has the unique ability to describe the quark-mass dependence of the finite-volume eigenstates. The robust nature of this capability is presented and used to confront current state-of-the-art lattice QCD calculations.

Disentangling Codependency from Empathy

By retrieving Edith Stein’s thought, this paper seeks to propose a spirituality of personhood conducive to healing the psychological root of codependency. In using the broad word codependency, this paper relies upon Charles L. Whitfield’s definition, which understands it as “a disease of lost selfhood.” This paper is working within the intersections of philosophical phenomenology, psychology, and spirituality, and Stein herself is thoroughly immersed in these disciplines. I will begin by delineating what psychologists have labeled codependency as a relational behavior scheme (rather than a diagnosed mental health disorder) and its pervasiveness within those who identify themselves as religious or spiritual using both a clinical and a phenomenological method. Next, by using Edith Stein’s philosophical phenomenological insights regarding the essence of empathy, this paper seeks to disentangle the Gordian knot of empathy and codependency (which I believe to be the core connection between a codependent psyche and those who hold religious and spiritual values). Finally, from Stein’s later works, I will propose a theological trinitarian anthropology that can help heal the lost sense of selfhood that is at the root of codependent ways of relating.

The ‘drive and talk’ as ethnographic method

Anthropologists have long embraced the value of the ‘walk and talk’ ethnographic method, which is an interactive means of generating research insights in situ – on site. In this article, we propose that there is room for an expanded appreciation of the ‘drive and talk’ method. While driving and talking with their interlocutors, researchers can elicit information prompted by features in the landscape and the environment that might be otherwise forgotten or overlooked if the interview context was set in a fixed location. To demonstrate the utility of this approach, this article explains the empirical and phenomenological (sensorial and experiential) insights yielded by driving and talking with interlocutors in a South Australian wine‐growing region. Automobility has the advantage over ambulation when it comes to accessing landscapes at the scale of the farm, which is where environmental management decisions are on heightened display.

The Significance of Touch in Pediatric Physiotherapy.

Change in theoretical framework over the last decades and recent research in pediatric physiotherapy, has created a debate surrounding therapeutic touch. What is the role of or is there a need for handling and hands-on facilitated guidance (facilitation)? Does it limit and/or interfere with children's learning and development? It is frequently argued that therapeutic touch represents a passive and/or static approach that restricts disabled children's participation during interaction and activity in clinical encounters leading to decreased home, school and community participation. Touch may even appear as coercive and controlling. In this context, therapeutic touch is largely associated with physical hands-on activities. However, therapeutic touch can also be understood as an intersubjective phenomenon that arises from a deep connection between movement, perception, and action. We believe the significance of therapeutic touch and its impact on physiotherapy for children has not been considered from this broader, holistic perspective. In this theoretical paper, we will apply enactive concepts of embodiment, sensory-motor agency, coordination, and emergence to explore the concept and importance of touch in physiotherapists‘ clinical face-to face encounters with children. We will frame the discussion within the context of the typical sensorimotor development of children from the fetal stage to birth on and into adulthood. Moreover, we will rely on biological, physiological, and phenomenological insights to provide an extended understanding of the importance of touch and the significance of touch in clinical practice.