Name of Theory
Phenomenology and Family Therapy
Introduction
The term “phenomenology” simply refers to what the word itself suggests: the study of phenomena, or more explicitly, the study of our experience of things (Becker 1992). Brute reality, for all human beings, is existence, being, and consciousness (Smith 2018). This initial state of existence, familiar to all living creatures, is where phenomenology begins.
Prominent Associated Figures
Popularized by German philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859–1938), phenomenology sees human experience as the bedrock of both existence and knowledge: as Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980), a disciple of Husserl, famously asserted, “existence precedes essence.” In other words, for Husserl and Sartre, phenomenology could be seen as an ontological statement, or, more properly, ontology could be seen as phenomenological statement: before we consider abstract concepts, before we form a worldview, before we consciously interact with the world, we exist, and we experience...
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References
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Rose, A., Murray, P. (2019). Phenomenology and Family Therapy. In: Lebow, J.L., Chambers, A.L., Breunlin, D.C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Couple and Family Therapy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49425-8_949
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49425-8_949
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