Nursing first encountered phenomenology in the late 1970s.
Kari Martinsen
Nurse and philosopher Kari Martinsen, hailing from Norway, challenged the prevailing state of nursing in Europe, which was heavily centered around technology and tools. She highlighted the oversight of ‘caring’ in the healthcare system. Since her master’s thesis (Martinsen, 1975), spanning over 40 years, she has consistently infused phenomenology into nursing, dedicating herself to shaping the nursing knowledge within the field of care science. Kari Martinsen underscores that nurses, by embracing a phenomenological attitude in their practice, can discern the inner worth and dignity of patients, fostering authentic therapeutic relationships (Norlyk et al., 2023). Her philosophical insights into the science of nursing care have left a notable impact on Nordic medical research, medical education, and clinical development to date (Arman, M et al., 2015)
Josephine Paterson and Loretta Zderad
In the United States, Josephine Paterson and Loretta Zderad challenged the prevailing societal and academic belief that all humans could be predicted and measured, with an emphasis on empirical methods as the superior research approach. They contested this perspective, advocating for nursing to contemplate and delve into its value by recognizing it as a vibrant experience occurring within the ‘lifeworld.’ Ultimately, they intricately incorporated phenomenology into nursing, presenting ‘Humanistic Nursing’ in 1988 (Paterson & Zderad, 2016). Following this, phenomenology started being utilized in nursing as a method to comprehend how nurses gain knowledge about their subjects. Notably, during that period, the authors chose to use the term ‘humanism’ instead of phenomenology in the book title due to the nuanced connotations associated with the term ‘phenomenology’ (Norlyk et al., 2023).
“that to many persons, it sounds strange, unpronounceable, foreign; to some forbidden; to others enticing.”
Even after nearly 40 years, phenomenology retains a similar nuance. We still find the term ‘humanism’ more comfortable than the ‘phenomenological perspective’, and there’s a slight sense of unfamiliarity and resistance to the word ‘phenomenology.’ However, when nursing encountered phenomenology – the method of inquiry seeking to understand humanity from what humans genuinely experience – it must have inevitably fallen in love with phenomenology. Perhaps phenomenology felt too akin to nursing, and nursing found it to be an essential and indispensable approach.
So, when did nursing in Korea first encounter phenomenology?
Kyung-Ja Han
Based on a search on Google Scholar, it appears that Professor Kyung-Ja Han from Colleage of Nursing at Seoul National University introduced phenomenology to nursing for the first time in 1987. Kyung-Ja Han(1987) primarily drew upon literature from the United States, including works by Madeleine Leininger, Jean Watson, Anna Omery, and others, to introduce phenomenology to the domestic field. At that time, Han argued that much of nursing research had been predominantly quantitative, underscoring the importance of qualitative research to gain a precise understanding of the subject and elucidate the meaning of experiences. During her presentation at an academic conference, she delineated the distinctions between quantitative and qualitative research, providing insights into the characteristics of phenomenological qualitative research methods. Additionally, she briefly introduced the methodologies of Van Kamm, Giorgi, and Colaizzi, which could be applied to phenomenological research principles (phenomenon, reality, subjectivity, etc.). While acknowledging the absence of a universally accepted methodology for phenomenological research in comparison to quantitative research, Kyung-Ja Han(1987) suggested that, given the ongoing significance for the applied discipline of nursing, phenomenology should continue to evolve and be developed.
Based on a Google Scholar search to identify the inaugural study in Korea that applied phenomenology, the research by Ae Jung KIM and Yung Hee CHOI (1990) has been verified as the first domestic study to employ phenomenology Using open-ended questions, the authors gathered data from hospitalized patients at a university hospital and applied Van Kaam’s research methodology to phenomenologically analyze the components of nursing care as perceived by patients. The identified components of nursing care included concern, warmth/caring, sincerity, togetherness, gentleness, assistance/support, comfort, teaching, and consolation. Conversely, components indicative of non-caring encompassed indifference, coldness, insincerity, a lack of togetherness, and roughness. This bears significant meaning as it provides insights into understanding what patients perceive as caring within the context of Korean culture, offering valuable guidance on how nursing care should be delivered.
The rise of phenomenology and the initiation of phenomenological nursing stem from a shared concern: the acknowledgment of human experiences that empirical approaches can never fully capture. The premise is that embarking on exploration from these experiences can result in the development of practical knowledge for enhancing human life. Additionally, phenomenologist Husserl underscores the importance of each discipline exploring its subject in a manner aligned with its essential nature. This compelled nursing to confront the reality that many phenomena it found intriguing cannot be exclusively measured quantitatively. Recognizing phenomenology as a meaningful methodology for investigating nursing phenomena, the intersection of nursing and phenomenology has generated various waves over the past 40 years. Waves have surged and subsided, persistently continuing. As of 2023, there is a feeling that the phenomenological movement, which had somewhat slowed, is gradually stirring once again.
- Ae Jung KIM & Yung Hee CHOI(1990). The Construct of Caring Concept Perceived by Patients in Nurse-Client Interaction. Korean Journal of Adult Nursing, 2(1), 52-74.
- Arman, M., Ranheim, A., Rydenlund, K., Rytterström, P., & Rehnsfeldt, A. (2015). The Nordic Tradition of Caring Science: The Works of Three Theorists. Nursing science quarterly, 28(4), 288–296. https://doi.org/10.1177/0894318415599220
- Martinsen, K. (1975). Filosofi og sykepleie. Et marxistisk og fenomenologisk bidrag. In: Filosofisk institutts stensilserie.
- Norlyk, A., Martinsen, B., Dreyer, P., & Haahr, A. (2023). Why Phenomenology Came Into Nursing: The Legitimacy and Usefulness of Phenomenology in Theory Building in the Discipline of Nursing. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 22, 16094069231210433.
- Paterson, J. G., & Zderad, L. T. (2016). Humanistic nursing.
- 한경자. (1987). 간호연구를 위한 현상학적 접근법. Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing, 17(2), 99-104. http://www.dbpia.co.kr/journal/articleDetail?nodeId=NODE02033765