Publisher's Synopsis
The purpose of this small text is to provide instructors with a tool for introducing existential-phenomenological psychology to advanced college students or graduate students. Chapter one briefly argues in favor of the need for a phenomenological viewpoint by exposing some of the difficulties inherent to causal-empiricism and rationalism. Chapter two lays out the most fundamental aspects of the phenomenological approach to data analysis and provides examples of phenomenological research results taken from the psychology of verbal aggression. Chapter three demonstrates how a descriptive-interpretive viewpoint like phenomenology can be used to illuminate the distinctly human way of being. Chapter four, What Phenomenology is Not, was included to dispel any misconceptions the reader might have or come across regarding what phenomenology is. Chapter five is a demonstration of how phenomenology has been used to clarify the meanings of anxiety, which is fundamental for anyone with clinical proclivities. Chapters six and seven show how phenomenology can be applied to two topics that are extremely confusing to any student of psychology: the nature/nurture debate and the unconscious. These topics are especially confusing for the student of phenomenology, as the literature on these topics has never been particularly conducive to existential-phenomenological thought.
