A Heideggerian hermeneutical analysis of survivors of incest

The phenomenological study described in this paper examined the lived experience of adult women survivors of childhood incest. Self-identified incest survivors (N = 5) participated in non-structured, audiotaped interviews. Subsequent transcripts were analyzed by a team of researchers using Heideggerian phenomenology to identify common meanings and themes in the texts. The major findings of the study suggested two constitutive patterns of lived experience among incest survivors: "Remembering As a Coming of What Has Been" and "Care: Reconstituting a Sense of Me."