Ep. 12 - Seeing Beyond Appearances: Embodying a Phenomenological Attitude
In this episode, the hosts talk about what is phenomenology and how to cultivate a phenomenological attitude in our everyday life and within the therapeutic context. Phenomenology means to pay attention and attend carefully to what appears- the phenomenon-in order to understand it and allow its essence to be disclosed. Phenomenology is a form of seeing through appearances, which means that how something or somebody appears is intrinsically connected with its essence. In this sense, phenomenology represents an unveiling, revealing, or disclosing of the essence of what appears or of the phenomenon of interest. Phenomenology accomplishes this by focusing on eliciting and exploring the lived experience evoked by a particular phenomenon, and by understanding the lived meanings emerging from that experience.
Phenomenology started as a philosophical movement in Europe in the 19th century, and then it blossomed in the 20th century. It is also known as the continental philosophy, and some of the significant early representatives of phenomenology are Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Sartre, to name but a few. Although there are some notable differences among these philosophers in terms of how they understood phenomenology, the common denominator in their philosophical approach was their focus on exploring how things appeared, the pre-reflective lived experience, and the meanings or understandings emerging from that.
A distinct emphasis in phenomenology is disclosing or revealing the essence of an experience, an event or of someone or something. In simple words, the essence is that quality of some thing that if it were to be removed, that thing would not be that thing anymore. If we took a banal example from our lives, we could ask about a cat: “What is it about this cat that makes her this particular cat and without which it would not be this cat anymore?” It is important to note that the essence is not separated from what appears but embedded in it and concealed by its appearance. In other words, to see the essence of this particular cat, we have to pay attention to how this cat appears to us in this particular situation when we lay our eyes on this cat. Hence, the essence reveals itself or is disclosed through attending carefully to what appears to us as we allow it to impress upon ourselves. An immediate way to recognize that we have come in touch with something essential is that we cannot remain indifferent to the essence. The essential impacts us and moves us profoundly. It touches our essence, and, through our own essence, we can detect and see what is essential in our world, in our lives.
There are many examples of when we have encountered the essence of someone, of an experience or of an event. For instance, we might have stumbled upon something essential when we noticed the sudden, rich, perhaps sensual appearance of natural beauty, and are moved by it to the point of having a sense of transcending our regular ways of being. Or when we encounter another person in their essence, we may have an almost mystical feeling of intensified presence that feels captivating and electrifying as well as mysterious. At times, when we encounter something essential, we may feel speechless or the deep understanding that is revealed in those moments is wordless; yet a strongly felt sense of being in the presence of something precious and true- this is what it is- is quite common with this experience.
We can cultivate this essential view or the phenomenological attitude in our everyday life and in our therapeutic practice by implementing some seductively simple yet quite challenging strategies:
- Paying attention and looking at something or somebody with a patient, lingering and curious look that wants to see not just to check it out
- Slowing down: Seeing the essential takes time
- Putting to the side our assumptions and presuppositions to remain curious, open, and ready to be surprised
- Attending to the apparently insignificant details and to the fragments of our perception as they appear without trying to make sense of them
- Resisting to make sense too quickly
- Being humble by acknowledging that at the beginning of this process and at various points during this process we simply do not know and yet we trust the process
- Allowing to be moved by what appears and noticing how we are moved by it as this is the path to understanding and to seeing the essential
Looking and seeing phenomenologically is a rigorous and sometimes tedious process: moving from scraps of perception to a holistic image or understanding truly requires our capacity to tolerate ambiguity, to remain open, and to stay only with what we see, without reaching to explanation or other intellectual distractions. This process may be counterintuitive to our human desire to wanting to make sense quickly, and to certain expert or medical models. In contrast to these models, phenomenology is deeply humbling because it unfolds from a place of “I do not know”
Notwithstanding some of its challenges, adopting a phenomenological attitude in therapy is critical for several reasons. First, the restoration of oneself and one’s experience is a slow process, often much slower than we would like it to be so taking time and slowing down- an essential aspect of phenomenological work- is vital for healing. Understanding clients’ unique suffering and experience of the world cannot be accomplished from an outside, expert model but only through a personal understanding of client’s lived experience and meanings. Furthermore, lots of clients at the beginning of therapy are quite phobic to turn towards their own experience and expect that the solution to their problems come from the outside, from an expert. Hence, it is important to encourage and cultivate in clients an attitude of curiosity and openness towards their own experiences and to understand themselves as the bearers of their experiences and the authors of their existence. Finally, being seen and understood as well as encountered in one’s essence are powerful gifts for any client and for any human being as this encounter has the potential to restore someone’s sense of who they are and even of their dignity.
As therapists adopting a phenomenological stance, it is important to ask our clients to describe their experience rather than explaining why the feel in a certain way or offering a well rehearsed narrative about why the experience what they experience. The “how” and “what” questions rather than the “why” questions may encourage that. Specifically, we may want to ask our clients: “How is that for you?”, “what does this experience do to you?”, “what moves you so much in this experience? ” or “what does this experience tell you or what is this experience about?”. If a client cannot connect with their lived experience in the present moment and in a particular situation, it may be worth trying to access that experience through imagination by asking “What image or song or movement does this experience evoke in you?”. While it is important to not let our clients offer us explanations instead of experiences, it is equally important that as therapists we remain open and accessible emotionally so that we are moved by our clients’ experiences, and allow these impressions to shape our understanding of the client. Slowing down as much as needed, taking time, and paying attention are also very important in embodying a phenomenological attitude in therapy.
