Mary de Chesnay, PhD, RN, PMHCNS-BC, FAAN, is a professor of nursing at Kennesaw State University and secretary of the Council on Nursing and Anthropology (CONAA) of the Society for Applied Anthropology (SFAA). She is the director of the WellStar School of Nursing and coordinator of the Doctor of Nursing Science program.
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C HAPTER O NE
Two of the first nurse researchers to explain the phenomenological method were Diekelmann and Allen (1989). Representativeness is the adequacy of an interpretation to represent different dimensions of experience.
C HAPTER T WO
Four patterns were identified under the overarching theme “being male is more stressful than being a minority student”. The themes were: perceived higher expectations, being outnumbered, being treated differently and being ridiculed. I don't have the energy to be a good mother... (Jane)... he is the only child I will have and I want to cherish him and every experience I have with him.
C HAPTER T HREE
One of the lessons from this was the value of starting small to build a relationship and be sure our working styles are compatible. One of the early experiences I had was presenting the study at the institutional review board (IRB) meeting. I provided her with reading materials and had her sit at the far end of the conference table while the survivor and I were on the other side.
Much attention also had to be paid to the quality of the data collected. The analysis begins at this point, and it continues through publication of the manuscript because. After we discussed all the transcripts, the PI prepared a summary of the themes with the text (quotes) supporting each theme.
We reviewed and discussed this again and began writing the results section of the manuscript. Although the process almost always takes longer than expected, it is worth the time to enjoy the journey.
C HAPTER F OUR
In the Life
This chapter and the ones that follow discuss a number of themes that emerged from what the women shared about their lived experiences in their narratives. Similarly, when examining women's accounts of why they remained involved in prostitution, themes of agency and empowerment related to their sense of being stuck, as well as the secondary benefits or benefits they received from being involved in prostitution, are addressed . Not surprisingly, there are bad and ugly elements to deal with, and indeed much of what the women in this study said and made sense of their involvement in prostitution detailed some of the specifics of what was bad and ugly about them.
But apart from the negative, the women also spoke of the good and what they got from their experience in prostitution, both when they were involved in it and when they walked away. In all cases, the women were not originally asked to talk about the good, bad and ugly of their lives in life. An analysis of the women's narratives made it clear that there were three main categories to be explored: the good, the bad and the ugly.
In short, for many of the women their experiences in prostitution contained elements of both paradox and contradiction, for, to borrow a line from Dickens, it was a mixture of both the best of times and the worst of times. No woman in this study recognized one and only one positive aspect or benefit of being involved in prostitution, and throughout their narratives the women talked about a number of benefits and things they enjoyed during their involvement.
Identity, Agency, and Lived Relation
Marie rejects the idea, like many of the other women in the study, that women in prostitution are sick and weak, stressing that they should not be treated as such, especially considering what women like her have experienced and endured. No one had a chance to be who they really are in life like someone who would pay to have sex with someone who hates sex, has a headache, or who just wanted to get the money asap so she could pay off the car before it was car impounded. In this chapter, I also shared themes related to relationships and belonging, and how being present in their lives provided a sense of belonging for some women.
For a number of the women, being involved in prostitution gave them a sense of belonging, something they hadn't experienced much before in their lives, and being alive allowed them to reach out and help others. touching that at the same place and space as they were. Being involved in prostitution allowed them to forge relationships with others who they felt were "their people", those who were also involved in life. As the women accepted that identity, of connecting and affiliating with others in life, they also connected by forming real relationships with women in life as well.
The dissertation has been submitted to ProQuest LLC and is available in the University of Pennsylvania library. I am also a managing editor for a mental health column in the American Journal of Nursing and have recently been appointed managing editor for a journal on human trafficking that is expected to begin publication in 2015.
C HAPTER F IVE
The study I describe in this chapter is my dissertation research, and much of the content here comes directly and verbatim from my dissertation (Green, 2012). I am a white woman, born in Atlanta at the height of the civil rights movement and raised in the southern United States. In my practice as a pediatric nurse practitioner, I was particularly concerned about physician relationships with African American parents and how those relationships affected child health.
Alfred Schutz's social phenomenology, with its focus on the intersubjectivity of the social world, provided an interpretive framework for considering African American parents' experiences in their children's encounters with health care. The beauty of the method is that it is quite flexible and can be used in many ways. Alfred Schutz's social phenomenology, with its focus on the intersubjectivity of the social world, thus provided an interpretive framework for considering African American parents' experiences in their children's health encounters.
The intense writing and analytical work that followed during those fall and winter months (I estimate I spent about 200 hours doing data analysis and writing after the summer work was completed, not later revisions required by my committee) , culminated in the completion of the dissertation in the spring of 2012. The meaning and origin of the expression: A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.
C HAPTER S IX
By this I mean that I tried to stay focused on the lived experience of health as described by the women in the context of the immigration experience. My research question involved understanding the meaning of health from the perspectives of the Russian-speaking women. She sat in the back of the room and, after the defense was over, validated everything I presented.
These women understood the purpose of the study and supported the study's need for better communication between health care providers and newcomers to the Russian community in the area. Also, the gatekeepers supported the need for the study and its importance for the health of current and future women in the community. I learned from one of the gatekeepers of the Russian-speaking community that it would not be unusual for participants to refuse audio recording.
The location of the study was based on the large influx of Russian-speaking immigrants to the region, and the state was one of the 10 largest states in the United States with the largest number of foreign-born residents from Russian-speaking countries. The researcher should practice the interview process and the use of the tape recorder.
C HAPTER S EVEN
He referred to these features as universal essences or eidetic structures and considered them to be representative of the true nature of the phenomenon under investigation (Wojnar & Swanson, 2007). The lived experience, as described by participants, is used to generate the universal structure of the phenomenon under study (Tymieniecka, 2003). The ultimate test of credibility of the descriptive phenomenological investigation's findings is the testimony of the participants themselves that the investigator's universal description of the phenomenon captured their personal experiences.
The pinnacle of descriptive phenomenological research is the presentation of a model that represents the structure of the studied phenomenon (Colaizzi, 1978). The Head Start office is located in a neighborhood of low-income housing units where many of the families served by the preschool reside. As mentioned earlier, due to the cultural context and the needs of the community, we shifted our broad research question slightly after the first two interviews.
If, in the future, we conduct descriptive phenomenological research with a similar community, we will continue to create a more culturally appropriate consent form with the help of the community representative and explain this approach to the IRB members in initial presentation. Identifying and establishing working relationships with trusted community leaders is, therefore, an essential part of using the phenomenological research method within community-based research.
C HAPTER E IGHT
In the second part of the exercise, it became obvious that other people could not recognize the described phenomenon. The stories shed light on lived experiences and possibilities of being in the world and reveal the essential meaning of the studied phenomena. Therefore, in this study, I chose parents who were in the middle of the colic period.
Of course, in the present study, participants were well aware of the phenomenon of a baby with colic - they lived in colic chaos. Four years later, we conducted follow-up interviews with the same parents to investigate the aftereffects of the colic period (Landgren, Lundqvist, & Hallström, 2012). The next step was a thematic structure analysis to validate the naïve understanding, which led to the finding of themes that convey the essential meaning of the parents' lived experiences.
Finally, we reflected on the naive understanding and themes in relation to relevant books and articles on the meaning of lived experience. This part of the writing process – the comprehensive understanding – is essential, according to Ricoeur, and can reveal new possibilities for being in the world.
C HAPTER A PPENDIX T HREE A
Nurse researcher www.nurseresearcher.rcnpublishing.co.uk Nursing History Review www.aahn.org/nhr.html.
C HAPTER A PPENDIX T HREE B
