Commentary :: essays papers

Commentary The article that will be discussed in this paper is entitled â€Å"Phenomenology as a method to investigate the experience lived: a perspective from Husserl and Merleau-Ponty’s thought† co-written by Maria Lucia Araujo Salada and Ruebens de Camargo Ferreira Adorno. The article gives a run through of the phenomenologies of both Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Edmund Husserl, in order to appropriate their theories into psychological nursing. The question written at the beginning of the second half of the article attempt to redefine the act of nursing through phenomenology. Then the author begins to describe how to use Merleau-Ponty’s work to re-evaluate the treatment of patients in an isolation ward. In the following passage the author describes how using Merleau-Ponty’s notion of lived experience would be beneficial for the nurse in treating patients in an isolation ward: â€Å"We chose students who were experiencing being on an isolation ward while they the research was conducted because we believed that while they were actually experiencing the isolation ward their thoughts and feelings related to the experience would show up in their perceptions before undergoing a reflexive process. In their descriptions we looked for their prereflexive experience, which is the origin of the whole reflexive process and knowledge of the world.† (Salada 288) Supposedly, by being on an isolation ward, they're lived-world is so limited that research can be done on the nature of perception much more concisely. As stated in the introduction to the article; "Recently nurses have seen phenomenology as an important methodology for understanding nursing experience....as opposed to the Cartesian method...this perspective seems to be better able to handle human issues by adding new perspectives..." (Salada 282) I chose this article because I am personally interested in how the work of phenomenology can be used in areas of medicine that have been traditionally controlled by psychology. The article gives an in-depth overview of Husserlian intentionality and Pontian redefinitions of the phenomenon and lived experience. Now, I will explain both the work Husserl and Merleau-Ponty have done in phenomenology as it regards this article. Husserl, Ponty and Phenomenological Research When Husserl began the phenomenological process, the dialectical problem that had arose from Cartesian dualism began to slip away. As Husserl put phenomenology, it was "universal in its scope, because there is no a priori which does not depend upon its intentional consciousness" (Husserl 11) Phenomenology begins from the primordial, it begins with 'the things themselves'.