Embodied interpretation: a novel way of evocatively re-presenting meanings in phenomenological research

Abstract

This article contributes to a growing trend in articulating an aesthetic phenomenology that exercises more evocative and poetic forms of writing. Our task is to give ontological weight to our common humanity, thereby facilitating experiences of recognition and `homecoming'. This developing trend could benefit from Gendlin's philosophy of the body and his practice of `focusing', which finds words that carry forward the textural dimensions of experience. We apply this practice of embodied interpretation to research about caring for a lifelong partner with Alzheimer's disease. We conclude that the value of embodied interpretation is that it serves the kind of knowledge that is particularly important in human sciences — it provides understandings that live in ways that touch both `head' and `heart'.

‘You know I've joined your club… I'm the hot flush boy’: a qualitative exploration of hot flushes and night sweats in men undergoing androgen deprivation therapy for prostate cancer

“…However, to further explore flush‐related experiences in a different way, future researchers may also consider using alternative qualitative approaches (e.g. inductive methods such as interpretative phenomenological analysis or methods that focus on embodied phenomenological interpretations such as embodied enquiry ). Secondly, the personal characteristics of the interviewing author (e.g.…”

The Phenomenological Film Collective: Introducing a cinematic‐phenomenological research method for social advocacy filmmaking

“…This evocative phenomenological description may viscerally “touch” the reader, “stir their sensibilities,” and invite them into deeper emotional contact with their own lived experience (Van Manen, ). The ultimate goal for this final phenomenological description is to express a lived experience through evocative, sensual language that can induce empathic understanding among readers, whereby such “language can connect to people in a heartfelt way and be complex enough to awaken not just a logical understanding but the sense of it as it lives” (Todres & Galvin, , p. 570).…”

Hearing the Voices of Students and Teachers: A Phenomenological Approach to Educational Research

“…Rather than idiosyncrasy that needs to be relabeled, inconsistencies can reveal meaning. Todres and Galvin (2008) and van Manen (2014) talk of another kind of transformation; they manipulate participant stories to make them "more resonant." We take issue with the presumption that researchers' words are more evocative or universal than the participants.'…”