How to Develop Phenomenology as Psychology: from Description to Elucidation, Exemplified Based on a Study of Dream...

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a methodological concept of phenomenological elucidation to promote the development of phenomenology as psychology. After offering a minimal review of the historical relationship between phenomenology and psychology, the first section gives a brief overview of the descriptive phenomenological approach developed by A. Giorgi and other psychologists. However, for phenomenology to evolve as a human science, the method should not remain descriptive. One needs to be able to answer the question of "why". The second section outlines the process of phenomenological elucidation on the topic of dream analysis. This process answers the question of "why" based on identifying differences between the fundamental phenomenological structure of the dream experience and that of the real experience. Husserl's classification of intentionalities is used as a heuristic for this identification. In the final section, phenomenological elucidation is defined as a way to answer the "why" question by treating the differences between the experiences in question as specific cases of more fundamental differences in phenomenological structure. This method is expected to be effective in the development of phenomenology as psychology, that is, as an empirical human science.