Supervising for Robust Hermeneutic Phenomenology: Reflexive Engagement Within Horizons of Understanding

Introduction

As a supervisor of postgraduate students using philosophical hermeneutics to research health-related phenomena, I find myself repeatedly having to reorient students’ ways of thinking, writing, and being in relation to their topics. The world of health service delivery and the research that informs it is predominantly influenced by positivist and technical rational models that seek to know, predict, control, and/or change practice (Crotty, 1998; Polkinghorne, 2004). Yet the knowledge we presently have about health-related experiences is inadequate. We know very little about what it is like to live the experiences of both of illness and the provision of care. Rolfe (2009) argues against evidence-based research approaches as the gold standard, suggesting that broader and more critically creative scholarship is essential. Drawing on the range of meanings Boyer (1990) articulated in relation to scholarship, Rolfe argues that conversations and writing are inherently scholarly activities. Furthermore, in relation to social research, Crotty (1998) advocates strongly for transactional reading of philosophical texts, thus recognizing the manner in which they can usefully inform methodology and methods. Thorne (1997) cautions against the dilution of scholarly traditions in qualitative health research, advocating strongly for methodological integrity, and Adams St. Pierre (2014) argues that a reorientation to ontological concerns is essential in qualitative methodologies. I fully support the view that methodology cannot be separated from ontology and, thus, when supervising hermeneutic research, I endeavor to model openly dialectical and dialogical engagement with students.

Philosophical hermeneutics (Gadamer, 1960/1975; Heidegger, 1927/1962; Taylor, 1985a; van Manen, 1997) focuses on the existential nature of human experience. It is able to accommodate the culturally and historically situated, dynamic, and interactive nature of our thinking, being, and doing. It also acknowledges that human understandings can and do change when there is openness to other interpretations (Gadamer, 1960/1975; van Manen, 1997). But learning how to be and remain open as a hermeneutic researcher is not easy. Students usually feel more comfortable following methods that are sequential, clear, and regarded as rigorous. They want the findings of their research to be accepted for publication and implemented in clinical practice. Yet the hegemonic place of the scientific method (McCaffrey, Raffin-Bouchal, & Moules, 2012; Rolfe, 2009) in health care and research is ever pervasive. We are surrounded by quests for structure and certainty in an uncertain world and embodying the, very different, hermeneutic phenomenological attitude when researching human experience takes time and effort. In the words of a former student, “It’s difficult. There are less rules to follow. It’s scary.”

Bringing “Self” to the Situation

While a student researching cross-cultural practice experiences several decades ago, I clearly recall one of my PhD supervisors, a sociologist, finding it difficult to see past the meaning of prejudice as other than holding negative bias. He had not previously considered the etymological origins of the word nor was he familiar with its Gadamerian use. In New Zealand’s sociological literature, prejudice is closely linked with racial discrimination and colonialism (Spoonley, 1993) and within media reporting, the association with minority group disadvantage is common.

When exploring the meanings inherent in nursing people from other cultures, the idea (new for me) that prejudices could be true or false (Gadamer, 1996) seemed to have relevance and potential, yet the nature of this significance was initially uncertain and very unclear. Furthermore, the sometimes adversarial nature of supervision meetings I attended did little to encourage the exploration of other possible meanings and I opted not to see this supervisor until I felt stronger about my developing argument.

Through the process of my research, and drawing from Gadamerian notions of true and false prejudice, I came to see prejudices as often paradoxical and potentially both enabling and limiting.

For example, in the context of New Zealand nursing, Ramsden (1997) challenges Codes of Ethics for seeming to deny difference. Arguing that nursing practice must be culturally safe, as defined by the client, she asserted that people should be nursed “regardful of all that makes them unique, rather than regardless of colour or creed” (Ramsden, 1997, p. 116, emphasis in original). The challenge was indeed valid. But were these ideas necessarily antithetical? The following couplet by Pat Parker (1978) exemplifies the paradoxical nature of respect for difference:

The first thing you do is forget that I’m black,

Second, you must never forget that I’m black. (p. 68)

My task as a hermeneutic researcher was to read, listen, ponder, analyze, question, and stimulate thinking. I sought to produce a thesis that was “thought-full,” thought-provoking, and “one that reflects on life while reflecting life” (van Manen, 1997, p. 368).

From a Gadamerian perspective, prejudices are thus “enabling and constraining” (Spence, 2001, p. 628).

True prejudices facilitate further understanding while false prejudices hinder such development. Prejudices originate from past experience and influence future possibility. They enable us to make sense of the situations in which we find ourselves yet, paradoxically, they may also constrain understanding and limit the capacity to come to new ways of being. It is this contradiction that makes prejudice paradoxical . . . accepting the notion of paradox is therefore a means of keeping tensions alive and possibilities open. (Spence, 1999, pp. 163–164)

In relation to research supervision, I gained the following important insights from this early experience:

Rilke describes this beautifully as follows:

Be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms or books that are written in a foreign tongue. The point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then, gradually without noticing, live your way into the answers. (in Wellwood, 1990, p. 1)

Guided therefore by the key Gadamerian tenets, “prejudice,” “fusion of horizons,” and “play,” and recognizing Taylor’s (1985a) notion of “strong evaluations” and Lampert’s (1997) work on cross-cultural interpretation, as a supervisor, I encourage students to illuminate the ways in which values and contact with difference engender the conflict essential for the ongoing critique and understanding of human phenomena.

Key Philosophical Tenets

From an existential position, humans exist in a world and cannot be described apart from it. Thus, prejudices or prejudgments “simultaneously constitute our ability to experience the world and interpret text” (Geanellos, 1998, p. 157). The notion of “fusion” is used to further Gadamer’s (1996) assertion that “all understanding is interpretation” (p. 398). Used as a metaphor for understanding, “fusion of horizons” refers to the coming together of differing vantage points through language. What eventuates is a broader and more complex, multifaceted, understanding. Moreover, because horizons are essentially open, the fusion is ongoing.

When one enters into a dialogue with another person and is then carried further by the dialogue, it is not only the will of the individual person . . . that is determinative. Rather, the law of the subject matter is at issue in the dialogue and elicits statements and counter-statements, and in the end plays them into each other. (Gadamer, 1996, p. 347)

and thus,

Those who understand a text . . . not only project themselves in an effort of understanding toward a significance, but acquire through understanding a new liberty of the mind. (Gadamer, 1979, p. 110)

Not only is fusion occurring between one party and another but also between past, present, and future understandings and potentially between what is said and not said.

Taylor (1985a) extends the hermeneutic claim that human beings are self-interpreting on the basis that feelings, values, and understandings are inextricably related. People are beings for whom things matter. Taylor uses the notion of “strong evaluations” (p. 16) to distinguish the qualitative worth of our different desires. Thus, the meanings we derive from our experiences are not only constituted rationally (Spence, 2001). We also respond emotionally to situations. Furthermore, because we make differential judgments about the importance or relevance of the feelings we experience, our emotions incorporate a sense of what is important to us. Thus, there is always a connection between feeling and judgment (Spence, 2001).

Lampert (1997) emphasizes the potential for understandings to develop through contact with difference, arguing that “learning contains a dialectic of reception and resistance” (p. 359) and, thus, that “conflict is valuable as a form of communication” (p. 360) contributing potentially to “multiperspectival self-understanding” (p. 363). Thus, if emphasis is placed on understanding the relationship between agreement and conflict when interpreting meaning, there is an increased possibility that future understandings will surpass those of the present (Spence, 2001).

Surfacing and Reflexively Engaging With Preunderstandings

Coming to understand one’s prejudices, presuppositions, or preunderstandings and the ways in which these and those of others influence the research journey is a difficult and ongoing challenge. Undertaking “presuppositions interviews” of students during their research projects assists to surface prior and evolving understandings in relation to the topic, literature, data, and emerging findings. When first discussing with a student the possibility of becoming their supervisor, I talk frankly about my own worldview and my current understandings in relation to the student’s topic. I encourage the student to do likewise and to keep a reflective journal throughout their research project. Then, prior to the student commencing data collection, I model the open-ended conversational style of interviewing required of hermeneutic phenomenology as a way of helping the student to begin reflexive engagement with his or her own assumptions and existing knowledge. I ask questions such as, “Tell me how you became interested in this topic.” “Was there an event or story that prompted this interest? Tell me as much about that as you can” or “Tell me about your experience of this phenomenon. Can you recall a story that stands out for you?” I then follow with questions seeking more detail and encourage the disclosure of feelings, thoughts, and concerns. The purpose is to elicit rich, previously taken-for-granted assumptions in relation to their topic so that the student can engage with these.

The following excerpt is a brief example from a student researching the experience of humanitarian nursing in developing countries. The student regularly participated in a team doing such work in her country of origin.

We arrive with exhilarated feelings; to work with good intentions. Sometimes it’s feelings of achievement, completion of the work we have done, for those were the goals set. But it’s also the look on their faces, hanging on the promises that we made, not by saying but by doing. We hoped that we had changed some lives. But we know of others who have to wait. We hope, we hope and they wait until we arrive again with the same promise. We don’t always leave with the same elated feelings, thinking, promising; we must come again for there is so much more to be done. (Lal, 2011, p. 5)

Some of the preunderstandings identified following reflective engagement with this student’s “presuppositions interview” included the following:

An example of reflexive engagement by another student researching families’ experience of chronic illness in children reads as follows:

There is dissonance between practitioner’s claims to be working in partnership and what happens in reality. The relationship between practitioners and families is centred around “doing” or “telling” them what to do rather than “asking” or considering family expertise and opinions. Families desire a partnership with health professionals but it is questionable whether health professionals are committed to a similar relationship. (Dickinson, 2004, p. 7)

This statement, made during interpretive analysis, declared a beginning position that evolved significantly as the everyday reality of “being in relationship” unfolded as being within a web, providing new and deeper understanding of the relationship between families and health practitioners (Dickinson, Smythe, & Spence, 2006).

The ongoing use of a reflective journal is another useful medium for recording insights and evolving understandings (Geanellos, 1998; Koch & Harrington, 1998). In relation to literature, in the following case, Truth and Method (Gadamer, 1960/1975), during my own PhD journey, I noted,

I like the positive feel of Gadamer’s writing. I like his ideas about the enabling possibilities of prejudice. This helps me see what makes nursing a person from another culture possible . . . It is also intriguing that he uses the terms “striving” and “in between” and that he draws on Aristotle’s phronesis in relation to moral understanding when discussing issues of “application” (Spence, 1999, p. 90)

And in relation to data analysis and emerging findings, I asked,

Is being open the way forward?

Jane [participant] states: It is more important to be open as a person than to go into a situation with your only mantle being, “I’m from this ethnic group.” I noted that this seemed congruent with Gadamer and Lampert but that I needed to re-read Leininger with this in mind. (Spence, 1999, p. 91)

Evident in these journal extracts is the dialogical relationship between self (researcher) and other (literature and raw data) through the use of question and possible answer. The researcher, through ongoing journaling, is tracking the dialectical nature of his or her thinking.

Taylor (1985a) uses the terms “home culture” and “strong evaluations” to describe understandings that are woven deeply into our lives revealing what matters most to us prior to interpretive effort. I drew from Peshkin’s (1988) notion of “warm” and “cool” spots to identify reactions to situations and ideas that I responded to positively [warm] as well as those about which I preferred not to hear [cool]. In relation to one transcript, I recorded,

Nurse X [pseudonym] mentions client vulnerability but does not see this as a reason to take more responsibility or make more effort in terms of compromise or flexibility. It’s hard trying to avoid being judgmental about nurses’ attitudes and their inability to be culturally sensitive. (Spence, 1999, p. 84)

Although knowing the difficult circumstances in which this person worked, I found myself expecting that she should be able to overcome these to meet patients’ cultural needs. This was a “cool spot.” I needed to explore the origins of this prejudice to see beyond it. Similarly, when supervising a student convinced about the “sacred sense of the holy” in relation to the experience of joy at birth, I encouraged exploration of this preunderstanding and its evolution to ensure against “hasty conclusions and potential for superficiality” (Crowther, 2014, p. 19). This requires finding the right questions and using them self-reflectively during data collection and analysis.

The following are examples of questions that supervisors can use to assist students in this process:

Remaining open to possible interpretations in hermeneutic research requires a rigorously, reflexive process of ongoing reading, listening, thinking, questioning, and writing. It requires a meditative type of mulling, one which, when combined with writing, lets thinking emerge without necessarily knowing where one is going yet is ever mindful of its cultural and historical horizons (Smythe, Ironside, Sims, Swenson, & Spence, 2008). It exemplifies both the critically creative scholarship advocated by Rolfe (2009) and Thorne’s expectations that scholarly traditions be upheld in qualitative health research.

Guided also by the Heideggerian insight that “We never come to thoughts. They come to us,” and maintaining an openness to possibilities congruent with Gadamerian philosophy, I have supported another student to further push the boundaries of reflexivity in terms of method (Heidegger, 1971/2001, p. 6). Sikh (2014) in a hermeneutic analysis of mindfulness psychology seeks to integrate meditative insights with selected Eastern and Western literature. The heuristic guide developed, for what Sikh tentatively named “mindfulness hermeneutics”, drew on the following: being in the hermeneutic circle, fusion of horizons, understanding as intrinsic to awareness, and the regular practice of meditation (Sikh & Spence, 2016, 2016). As his supervisor, I encouraged and supported reflexive engagement with the insights and new understandings that emerged during the 4 years he took to complete his doctoral research.

Sikh posited that historicality, prejudice, and fusion of horizons (Gadamer, 1996) and Heidegger’s (1927/1962) notion of being had some congruence with nondualistic mindful awareness.

The Eastern philosophies suggest that understanding is intrinsic to an awareness in which the subject (oneself) and object are united in non-dualistic oneness. Because the mind functions automatically, a duality between conditioned knowing and reality as it exists is created, shrouding truth in layers of preconceived ideas. The role of the interpreter is to remove the hindrances to “pure” awareness, caused by conditioning, through the practice of meditation. (Sikh, 2012, p. 61)

Endeavoring to utilize his whole being, not just his mind, through regularly practicing meditation to “let go” ideas and control, Sikh (2012) achieves “an awakening and attunement to a reality that has been dormant under the slumber of his conditioning” (p. 171). Journaled insights deriving from meditating were thus interwoven with those interpreted from selected Eastern and Western texts to advance and deepen understandings pertaining to mind and mindfulness therapy.

Attentiveness to Language

Interpretive writing reflexivity is another key signature of philosophical hermeneutics (McCaffrey et al., 2012). The process of textual interpretation is one of constant elaboration and synthesis through questioning, exploring words, and their meanings and confronting contradictions. Writing and rewriting are integral to the interpretive process (van Manen, 2014). Students need support and encouragement to intuitively dwell with data, to live with uncertainty and paradox, and to patiently engage in the processes of reflection and reflexivity. The manner in which their ideas are communicated in writing has important consequences both in terms of communicating meaning and achieving methodological congruence (Watson & Girard, 2004). Word selection is critical.

I strongly advocate use of etymological dictionaries and keeping a glossary of contextually relevant meanings. I encourage the use of gerunds (“ing” words) because they are more ontological and caution students against the use of absolutes like “truth” and “pure” unless they use single quotation marks for the purpose of alerting the reader to colloquial usage. Words such as “perhaps,” “seem,” “may,” “suggest,” and “appear” create a tentativeness that is consistent with hermeneutic openness to other possibilities, and the terms “yet,” “although,” “but,” and “at the same time” assist to convey the contradictory and paradoxical nature of the phenomenon being interpreted. For similar reasons, I also counsel against dichotomies (preferring “and” to “or”) and statements that convey strong bias, unless these are going to be explored.

As a supervisor, I find following prompts useful:

Questions and answers within the text can assist to convey a sense of tension between that which is known and that which may yet be known. This strategy also serves as a reminder of the prejudices and effective historical consciousness (Gadamer, 1996) being brought to the analysis. Phenomenological researchers seek to “show” rather than “tell” yet theses and dissertations are, and should be, sustained arguments. Thus, paradoxically a good phenomenological thesis must “show” and “tell.” The findings constitute a contribution to the dialectic between human experience, science, reflective practice, and practical wisdom. They are offered with the expectation that they will provoke further contemplation and possible meanings for, in hermeneutic inquiry, all understandings open to growth and change. As Gadamer (1996) states, “It would be a poor hermeneuticist who thought he could have, or had to have, the last word” (p. 579).

Discussion

van Manen (2014) speaks of “hermeneutic phenomenology as a method of abstemious reflection” by which he means reflecting on experience in a way that abstains from “theoretical, polemical, suppositional and emotional intoxications” (p. 26). He goes on to emphasize questioning more than answering, musing in a manner that allows insights to come and focusing on the sources and meanings inherent in prereflective experience. Thus, robust hermeneutic phenomenology has less to do with adhering to rules and procedures than it has to remaining faithful to the spirit of its underlying philosophy.

Koch (1995) supports the view that philosophical hermeneutics “invites participants into an ongoing conversation, but does not provide a set methodology” (p. 835). Thus, she strongly recommends reflexive journaling as a means of providing a decision trail (Koch, 1994). Carr (2006), advocating for a nonmethodological view of action research, convincingly argues that a return to the Gadamerian notion of effective historical consciousness is congruent with the Aristotelian tradition of practical philosophy, and Adams St. Pierre (2014) describes reorienting her thinking away from prescriptive procedures, toward postmodern thinking, and thus she encourages students to “begin with the epistemological and ontological commitments of the analysis” (p. 10).

I have similarly argued that doing robust hermeneutic research in health care requires a form of situated and contextually practical reasoning consistent with the Aristotelian notion of phronesis. Health professionals and much of the research that usefully informs their practice are based on ethical know-how and the inextricable interrelationships between practical and theoretical activity. The related term, praxis, describes the interplay between being and knowing. It refers to understanding that is not separate from the interpreter but something that becomes constitutive of practice. In phronesis, understanding comprises practical and moral rather than epistemological or technical activity; however, reflection is an essential part of praxis because it is only through reflection that we become aware of our values and actions (Bishop & Scudder, 1990; Lumby, 1991).

When Heidegger (1977) uses the German word “weg” translated as “way” in relation to thinking, he is not speaking definitively. He is describing a waitful, anticipatory, and more poetic experience with thinking. According to hermeneutic philosophy, the interpreter/researcher enters a reflexive dialogue with the texts, not only asking questions but listening carefully for questions arising from interpreting the texts. Willingness to work between the “familiarity and strangeness” of texts is required because “the true locus of hermeneutics is this in-between” (Gadamer, 1996, p. 295). Doing robust hermeneutic phenomenology requires opening oneself to a journey of contemplative thinking, questioning, and writing. In addition to continual engagement with prior understandings throughout the research process, this means embodying attitudes and behaviors that keep open the play and support the continued playing out of possibilities. The strategies recommended for achieving good work therefore include explicating one’s moral position vis-à-vis the phenomenon, treating all understandings as culturally and historically situated, exploring multiple perspectives and possible meanings (Spence, 1999), incorporating reflective accounts into the research product (Koch & Harrington, 1998), paying careful attention to the meanings of words and phrases (Spence, 2004), and using writing as a form of research and scholarship (Rolfe, 2009).

Conclusion

Supervising students doing hermeneutic phenomenology means encouraging reflexive engagement within and across horizons of understanding. It means helping them to embody meditative rather than calculative thinking and supporting their commitment to a sustained and uncertain, cyclically iterative, journey of reading, listening, thinking, questioning, writing, and rewriting. It also means modeling and encouraging dialectical researcher engagement with philosophy, methodology, and method, thus exemplifying the part–whole relationships that constitute hermeneutic scholarship to achieve the internal congruence required for robust research.