Abstract
The aim of this chapter is to trace some early relations between psychology and phenomenology in the history of psychology. With this analysis, we intend to show that phenomenological approaches have a fruitful history in early psychology. In the second part of this chapter, we then present three classical case studies in which the authors—Kurt Lewin, Martha Muchow, and Gustav Ichheiser—resorted to phenomenological approaches. We discuss these classic studies in relation to how Lewin, Muchow, and Ichheiser all used different phenomenological approaches to understand the mind (in the sense of the German term: Bewusstsein) and human behavior. Furthermore, in outlining some of the main tenants of where phenomenology and psychology have progressed on common grounds, we pay special attention to the person–environment relation. Focusing on the person–environment relation in light of classic phenomenological psychological perspectives aims at highlighting the need to reintegrate psychological processes and underlying functions of the personal living space in contemporary psychological analyses.
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Notes
- 1.
English title: Experimental studies on the seeing of motion.
- 2.
Own translation: “The area ‘up front’ seems to have an end, upon which ‘nothing’ follows.”
- 3.
In German: Die Großstadt als Lebensraum und Lebensform.
- 4.
Own translation from a letter cited in Strnad 1949, p. 16.
- 5.
Note that Ichheiser’s work on attribution goes back to his early works from the 1920s. For a more comprehensive discussion on Ichheiser’s contributions to social psychology and attribution theory see Rudmin et al. (1987).
- 6.
As can be read in letters kept in the Archives of the University of Chicago Library, Special Collections Research Center, e.g., addressed to Everett Hughes from William Ireland dated February, 1970, in Hughes Everett Cherrington Papers, Box 32, Folder 15.
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Benetka, G., Joerchel, A.C. (2016). Psychology as a Phenomenological Science. In: Valsiner, J., Marsico, G., Chaudhary, N., Sato, T., Dazzani, V. (eds) Psychology as the Science of Human Being. Annals of Theoretical Psychology, vol 13. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21094-0_2
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