In August 2011 Amedeo Giorgi was interviewed at Saybrook’s graduate conference on themes related to his life’s work in phenomenological psychological research. The panel was comprised of four former doctoral students of Giorgi’s at Saybrook: Drs. Lisa K. Mastain, Adrienne Murphy, and Sophia Reinders, and was moderated by Marc Applebaum. This transcript was edited by

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Here is the presentation I gave in Montreal at the 31st International Human Science Research Conference. My aim was to encourage dialogue between interpretive and descriptive researchers, and clinicians whose work is informed by these perspectives. My premise about the complementarity of description and interpretation is based on Jitendra Nath Mohanty’s work on Husserl’s phenomenology.

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Perhaps the most exciting thing I have found in becoming a phenomenological psychologist is how fundamentally important it is to value the subjective psychological perspective when seeking to understand people (Giorgi & Giorgi, 2003). Television “reality shows” have become popular because they provide a “fly on the wall” perspective of dramatic events in a world

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        Husserl’s phenomenology is epitomized in his call for a return “back to the things themselves,” “Zurück zu den Sachen selbst.” We view this “return” as a shared project. The return, in other words, is intersubjective and not solipsistic: we return to the things in order to dialogue together about them together

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“Husserlian phenomenology, in its search for meanings, is guided by respect for the given.”  –Jitendranath Mohanty Practicing phenomenological psychology, whether as a researcher or as a clinician, means learning a craft. Its raw materials are the descriptions given to us by interview participants—or, if we are psychotherapists, by our clients. Our “tools” derive from the

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