Beech Bracketing

35
Bracketing in
phenomenological
research
Ian Beech BA (Hons), RMN, RGN, PGCE, is Senior Lecturer in Nursing,
University of Glamorgan, Pontypridd.
Ian Beech considers the effect of bracketing in phenomenological

research
According to Moustakas (1): In the Epoch, no position whatsoever

is taken; every quality has equal value. Only what enters freshly into
consciousness, only what appears as appearance, has any validity at all
in contacting truth and reality. Nothing is determined in advance.
Bracketing in phenomenological research (or epoch,
presuppositionlessness, or phenomenological reduction, terms found
in other texts and used interchangeably here) is a fundamental
methodological principle, and texts that have described a
phenomenological approach to nursing research often refer to the
use of bracketing (2-5). While this technique is often seen to be of
great importance, the way in which it might be achieved is rarely
discussed.
In this paper I will consider the philosophical basis for bracketing
and the use of bracketing in empirical research. I will illustrate a
method by referring to an interview transcript obtained during an
ongoing research study into helpfulness in the relationship between
mental health nurses and people in care. This paper is in no way
intended to be prescriptive. It is intended as a description of the
process of my experience of seeking a way through the muddy
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36
Phenomenology revisited
waters of methodology as a novice researcher. As such I hope that it
may provide others with assistance, points for debate or areas of
disagreement.
Bracketing in philosophical work

Bracketing is the process by which the researcher resolves to hold all
preconceptions in abeyance in order to reach experiences before they
are made sense of, before they are ordered into concepts that relate to
previous knowledge and experience (6). To find the reason for this
approach it is useful to start by considering the philosophical roots of
phenomenology.
Husserl (1859-1938) is generally acknowledged as the founder of
phenomenology (7) and it was he who first put forward bracketing as a
means whereby the philosopher could look at things as they actually
appear, unencumbered by any preconceptions, biases or judgements. In
other words, by adopting this presuppositionless approach of holding
the world in brackets in the mathematical sense, the philosopher
could return to pure consciousness of the phenomenon. In some ways
Husserls approach might be seen as Cartesian in its turning away from
the world (8). However, this is not completely the case. Cartesian
doubt doubts everything until the philosopher arrives at the conclusion
that only the philosopher exists, since to think and to doubt
necessitates the existence of the thinker/doubter. Husserl does not
doubt the existence of the world outside himself, rather he brackets his
own presuppositions about that world. In other words, he strips away
all reflective elements concerning phenomena in order to reveal those
phenomena as they are, rather than as they are conceived of within
what is called the natural attitude that is within our normal, everyday,
common-sense view of the world (1).
Bracketing in empirical work

The adoption of a presuppositionless approach is particularly important
in phenomenology that traces its roots back to the work of Husserl.
37
However, Kvale (9) asserts that in all phenomenological approaches

there is an essential tension to be recognised between bracketing and
the recognition and incorporation of fore-knowledge about the
phenomenon. Paley (10) is critical of nurse researchers who claim to be
bracketing in empirical research. He argues that what nurse researchers
are doing is not bracketing in the Husserlian sense and so they should
not use the term. Compelling as Paleys argument may seem, I will go
on to argue that nurses can bracket in the sense that phenomenological
psychology uses the term. I will also argue that the difference between
bracketing in philosophical phenomenology and bracketing in
psychological or empirical phenomenology need not preclude the use
of the term in either case. However, I accept Paleys critique (10) to the
extent that I consider that, if nurses are to use the term bracketing,
clarity of description of the process of bracketing is necessary. In this
spirit I will first address the issue of bracketing in the psychological and
the philosophical sense in order to attempt to describe each clearly. I
will then move on to relate my own attempts at the process of
bracketing to allow the reader to judge its success or failure.
Ashworth (11) has argued that although bracketing appears to be a
technique of pure philosophy it remains a methodological principle
upon which empirical work in phenomenological psychology should be
built: In order to reflect on the psychological realm one must bracket
the presupposition that the processes and structures of the psychological
world relate (or do not relate) to some natural, objective reality. Such
bracketing is the phenomenological-psychological epoch.
For Ashworth psychological bracketing differs from both Husserls
philosophical bracketing and Descartes doubting. Ashworth differs
from both Descartes and Husserl inasmuch as he accepts the existence
of data, those data being the psychological processes of the person
being researched. In contrast to the case of Descartes, Ashworth and
Husserl would accept the existence of the other person, that is, the
interviewee, and the existence of his/her psychological processes.
What they would bracket is the presupposition that those processes
relate to (what Ashworth calls) objective reality. It is here that
38
Ashworth is alluding to Kvales (9) essential tension between
bracketing and fore-knowledge of the phenomenon and in so doing
Ashworth provides us with some indication of where that tension lies.
Problems that leap out of the brackets

In spite of Ashworths assertions as to the importance of bracketing,
there remain some important issues. These are raised by Fouch (12)
and Crotty (7). Given that the phenomenological researcher is
bracketing presuppositions about the phenomenon, Fouch wonders
what the difference is between bracketing and the nonphenomenological researchers attempts to reduce bias. Crotty (7)
moves on from the question of bracketing to a critique of nursing
phenomenology in general, and has argued that much of the research
carried out in nursing with the title of phenomenological research is
not what he considers to be phenomenology in the sense that Husserl
intended. Crotty considers it to be a new phenomenology that, while
being important and informative for practising nurses, is lacking the
critical element of true phenomenology. He believes that
phenomenology should stay true to the methodology of Husserl rather
than enter a new form that seeks something other than the pure essence
of that which is studied. Crotty (7) believes that this failure to stay true
to the methodology of Husserl is partly because of a searching for
general themes that are then given as a description of the phenomenon:
[In nursing phenomenology] phenomena are synthesised or
elaborated. This synthesis or elaboration is achieved via a two-step
process. First when they have put together the data gleaned from the
subjects accounts of their individual experience, researchers identify
the themes emerging from the data. These themes subsume the
commonalities to be perceived within the overall data. In the second
step of the process, the themes come together to form an exhaustive
description, a general-level description, or a constitutive pattern.
It is this description or pattern that tends to be regarded as the
phenomenon and the essence of the experience.
39
So, for Crotty, researchers are guilty of imposing a structure on the

phenomenon for themselves out of a search for thematic elements
within the data they have collected they have failed to bracket in the
Husserlian sense. Furthermore, he contends that the nurse researcher is
bracketing only his/her own preconceptions about the information
provided by the subject of the research, not all understanding of the
phenomenon, since the researcher cannot ensure that the subject
brackets his/her preconceptions. In other words Crotty considers that
phenomenological research carried out by nurses loses an essential
claim of Husserls that it is possible to achieve a totally transcendent
ego (in Husserls sense of I or my centre of consciousness rather
than the developmental stage of the I) that can be totally free of
biases and presuppositions, that is, an ego that transcends all
interpretation and bias and allows the pure essence to reveal itself to
that ego by the process of reflection.
The responses to both Fouchs and Crottys challenges lie in the
relationship between phenomenological philosophy and
phenomenological psychology. Uhler (13) claims that psychology was
never deemed by Husserl to be transcendental in the way that Husserl
thought philosophy should be. He considered that transcendental
philosophy can be seen as the foundation of psychology, not vice
versa. Ashworth (11) contends that bracketing in phenomenological
psychology does not refer to a resolve to turn away from the world in
order to concentrate on consciousness itself, as Husserl requires of
bracketing in philosophy. Bracketing in the psychological sense is
rather a putting aside of claims that the psychological processes relate
to an objective truth or reality. Consequently, Fouch believes that:
[Our] subjects self and the world will be seen as transcendent, i.e.
actually existing, while [our] subjects experiences will have the status
of experiences which, for [our] purposes, are not considered as having
any reference to reality.
Bracketing in phenomenological psychology research is therefore
the resolve to put aside any notions of truth and measures of accuracy
of what the subject of the research is saying. However, it does not
40
mean that the psychologist can put aside any notion that the subject
exists. For to interview someone in the research context while putting
aside a belief in the existence of that person would be, as Fouch
states, absurd: Epoch, which will apply equally to the psychologists
subject and to her experiences, will mean, obviously, not a suspension
of the certainty that the subject exists, but that she is precisely as she
appears to him to be.
In defence of bracketing
If bracketing in empirical work fails to achieve the transcendental ideal
of Husserl why should it remain an important principle in empirical
research? The importance, argued by Merleau-Ponty (14), is that the
phenomenological reduction allows us to enter the life-world of
another. We are required to bracket our preconceptions concerning
scientific explanations of the world out there. For example, in my
research on helpfulness in the relationship between mental health
nurses and people in care, the life-worlds of the people being
interviewed may, in some circumstances, lack a great deal of
consensus with the life-worlds of the majority of people in society, that
is, the interviewees may be considered to be deluded or having
hallucinations. By bracketing presuppositions about the in touchness
with reality of mentally-ill people we can consider the life-worlds of
those people unencumbered by scientific theories about paranoid
delusions and hallucinations, and also by our own experiences of
nursing people with mental illnesses.
To bracket or not to bracket (intentionality)?

If bracketing remains an important principle in phenomenological
research, we have to determine what may be bracketed and what must
be assumed. As previously stated, we assume the existence of the
person being interviewed. To do otherwise would be to render the
research activity as meaningless. Furthermore, if the person exists we
cannot bracket out his/her status as a person. We must then consider
41
the persons intentionality. When we consider persons we consider

them to possess intentionality. Intentionality can have two meanings
and we need to consider both of these when we are discussing
phenomenological research. In the common sense meaning of the
word we are referring to a persons motives for action. A person may,
therefore, have the intention of deceiving the researcher in order, for
example, to present him/herself in a favourable light. In positivistic
terms a lie in an interview situation would be an invalid piece of selfreporting. However, for the purposes of phenomenological research a
lie may indicate a truth story that the person intends to convey and so
cannot be so blithely disregarded (15). In other words, if a person
experiences feelings of being undervalued by others, the person may
report those feelings in the form of a story that may not be objectively
accurate, for example, a story about a deliberate conspiracies and so
forth. However, the value of the story lies in the access it gives to the
persons experiences, and not in its relationship to any claims to an
objective truth.
In a phenomenological sense we expect the person to have
intentionality towards the phenomenon being investigated. This means
that the person is reaching out in a mindful way towards that
phenomenon and is conscious of it (7). Just as we can neither bracket
the existence of the person being interviewed nor the persons
commonsense intentions, we cannot bracket that the person has
intention towards (in a phenomenological sense, that is, consciousness
of) the thing under investigation.
Moving on from both senses of the intentionality of the interviewee,
we must also consider our intentionality (in both senses) as
researchers. In the common usage of the term, our intentionality means
we have a purpose in carrying out our research; that purpose may be to
find out something or it may be that we wish to base some form of
policy or practice on the results of our research. Therefore our research
is research that is about something and not about other things. To fail
to have this direction and purpose would be to render the research
meaningless and so we cannot bracket this away.
42
In the phenomenological sense we have a consciousness of the thing
researched, that is, an intentionality towards it. While remaining
attuned to it, we need to bracket our previous experiences and
knowledge of that thing. For example, in my own research I have
experience of working with people considered to be depressed using
cognitive techniques. The results that I have experienced appear to me
to help people. However, I must bracket this assumption if a person in
care is describing to me his/her experiences of undergoing cognitive
therapy. This I believe to be the essential tension to which Kvale (9)
alludes.
Giorgi (16) discusses a further problem for the researcher in
phenomenology. If the researcher is attempting to be
presuppositionless in approach, to what extent can the
phenomenological method itself be bracketed? The answer to this
question is that the researcher should be phenomenological in general
approach. By this Giorgi means that general phenomenological
approaches to data are adopted. These are:
Bracketing
Imaginative variation of meaning the refusal to accept the first
meaning that emerges from the data until all possible meanings have
been explored. It would be contrary to phenomenological method here
to make any assumptions about the persons account being the truth, it
is a truth
Intuition of structures the researcher attempts to grasp the
psychological meanings for the person by utilising the
presuppositionless entry to the persons life-world that bracketing has
allowed.
Coupled with the phenomenological approach is a
presuppositionless approach to method so that a rigid menu of
methodological steps for the research does not bind the researcher. The
researcher must also accept the possibility that the thing being
researched may not have any relevance to the life-world of the
interviewee or may have a totally different meaning in one persons
43
life-world from that in anothers (11). For example, in my own

research, I asked a nurse to tell me of an occasion when she felt that
she had been helpful and her response was to question why I had
chosen helpful. She stated her belief that nurses are helpful, helping
is what they do. A more interesting thing to research, in her opinion,
would be being therapeutic because while all nurses help people not all
are therapeutic.
Bracketing by any other name

We are now faced with a situation where the phenomenological
philosopher and the phenomenological psychologist are both carrying
out an action that they both refer to as bracketing. How can this be
reconciled? One relatively straightforward response to this would seem
to be that these two descriptions cannot be reconciled and
psychologists (psychology comes later so might be expected to
change) must refer to what they do by the use of a different
vocabulary. Crotty (7) suggests that there could be a tweak in
vocabulary so that nurse researchers could use the phrase New
Phenomenology. I remain to be convinced that changing the name of
something automatically changes our understanding of that thing or
the use to which that thing is put. If nurses were to use the term New
Phenomenology would they be any clearer about what it is they are
doing when they claim to be carrying out research of a particular
nature? After all, nurses seem to spend an inordinate amount of time
on semantics, two examples being deciding what to call people
(patients, clients, or service users) and choosing between the terms
mental handicap, learning difficulties, learning disabilities. Yet it
remains inconclusive whether what nurses do is any different
whichever term is adopted.
Can we consider parallel difficulties in terminology, and if so how
are these overcome? I believe there are some parallel situations on
which we can draw. Consider the word rugby. Apart from its
meaning as a town the word also conveys similar other, different,
meanings to someone from Wigan and someone from Cardiff when
44
talking about a game. We look at context, the rules of the game and the
qualitative nature of the action on the fields of play in order to discover
the meaning of the word to the two people. Rather like the later
Wittgenstein (17) we might say that the meaning of the word lies in its
use within varying specific contexts. Consider the language games that
are occurring when someone from Wigan and someone from Cardiff
meet. Before meaningful dialogue may proceed they need to establish
a common understanding of rugby by recourse to the detail and
context of the game in question. They may then proceed to have a
meaningful dialogue. However, once the two people return to Wigan
and Cardiff they can return to their local use of the word rugby
without any problem. Similarly, if a philosopher and a psychologist
use the word bracketing they need to know the context and the action
to which they refer in order to establish a common understanding, a
shared meaning of the word. Yet they can return to their own fields of
study and carry on with their use of the word as they have previously
used it. As long as the researcher is explicit about the process of
bracketing so that others can observe and understand the rules of the
game then the researcher can legitimately use the word. Confusion
arises when there is an assumption on the part of the writer that there
is a shared meaning between the philosopher and the psychologist. In
other words the common understanding should not be assumed. Its
basis should be made explicit rather than deemed implicit.
Examples of the process

The interview I will use as an example of the process of bracketing is
one taken from a larger piece of research investigating helpfulness in
the relationship between nurses and people in care in mental health. In
the course of the research I have interviewed both people in care and
nurses. In this example the interviewee is a nurse who works in a
community mental health team (CMHT).
Attempting to unknow the known

45
Munhall (18) deems bracketing to be a process of unknowing wherein

it is important to avoid the assumption that as interviewers we know
the experiences and the life-world of the interviewee. Part of the
process is to unknow our own interpretations of similar experiences. In
the current situation therefore I have to unknow my experiences of
having been a community psychiatric nurse (CPN), my experiences of
relationships that I have had and continue to have with people in care,
and also all of my reading and reflections on the relationships being
questioned. Unknowing involves something other than merely
forgetting there is a need to remain mindful of the phenomenon
while unknowing experiences of it.
Carpenter (19) considers that one way of facilitating a
presuppositionless approach is to avoid carrying out any form of
literature review until after all of the data have been collected and
analysed. In doing this she claims the researcher is unencumbered by
previous reading and reflection. I do not concur with this approach
because I believe previous influences will be there from the enormous
variety of sources that we are all subject to in our daily lives (an
example for me being my own memories of having worked as a CPN).
But they will not have been considered and reflected on in a mindful
way and then put aside or unknown, as would be likely to occur if one
has read, reflected on and bracketed the considerations raised by the
reading.
Before carrying out this interview and the others in the series, an
extensive literature review was carried out. This review encompassed
previous studies on the nature of the relationship between nurses and
people in care, on the training and work of psychiatric and mental
health nurses, on users views of psychiatric services and on
conceptions of helpfulness and effectiveness in clinical work. The
information gleaned was analysed and noted, then put to one side. I
also spent considerable time reflecting on my own experiences as a
nurse in practice and education; I wrote an account of my own
conceptions of helpfulness, brought them into awareness and placed
them to one side. This is consistent with Munhalls (18) approach, in
46
which she suggests attempting to quiet ones own thoughts by being
aware of them. In many ways this approach is out of sympathy with
our normal thought processes and more in tune with the meditative
processes of some Eastern religions such as Buddhism (15). The
reason for the process is to lead the researcher to the point of being
able to just see rather than to interpret according to his/her
preconceptions.
After each interview takes place the information available to the
researcher increases. Consequently, the process of reflection and
quieting of the mind must be carried out prior to all interviews. This
could be aided by adopting the following strategies. An interview diary
can be held that records significant points from each interview along
with personal feelings and reflections on the interview. This
information is reflected on and incorporated into the total information
to be bracketed. It is important to ensure that interviews are not too
close together in time so that this unconsidered data is allowed to
become present to the interviewer, so allowing it to be bracketed.
Immediately before the time of the interview the interviewer may
require time to reflect on the process of unknowing. I suggest, for
example, that listening to the radio or a music tape in the car on the
way to the interview would be a hindrance to this process since it can
detract from the ability of the interviewer to reflect.
Forewarned is fore-armed?
At this point it may be worth considering whether or not to inform the
interviewee beforehand about the nature of the proposed interview, that
is, the questions to be addressed. Crotty (7) is firm on this and
considers that there should be a bracketing of the phenomenon by the
people interviewed and those interviewing. This leads to the
conclusion that, for Crotty, bracketing by all in the research process is
necessary if not essential in phenomenological research. However, in
my view we are interested in the lived experience of the person as that
person experiences the phenomenon in question and so should not
47
require of our interviewees that they attempt to bracket preconceptions.

We have to accept that those preconceptions inform the life-world of
our correspondent as it relates to the phenomenon. Therefore from a
phenomenological point of view I see no requirement to inform
interviewees of the proposed nature of the interview. However, when
we consider the question of whether to inform interviewees or not
there may be considerations other than phenomenological
methodology that we bring to bear. I will consider two issues that I
consider to be important: the ethics of the research; and the concept of
respect for persons.
Ethical research In terms of ethical principles, the people consenting
to take part in the interview process need to know certain things about
the research. These include:
The knowledge that coercion is absent and that refusal to take part
will not affect any present or subsequent treatment
The nature of the proposed questioning
The degree of confidentiality that might be expected from the
researcher
Whether consent is a once-and-for-all concept or whether the person
can withdraw from the research if s/he feels uncomfortable during the
process
The point of the research being carried out, that is, who might gain
benefit from it.
With these issues in mind I resolved to provide all of the informants
in the study with full information about the nature of the research
proposed. This information included the role that they would be
requested to take in the study and the possible benefits that the study
might give to mental health nursing practice and to people receiving
mental health nursing care.
Respect for persons This second point is closely linked to the first. In
research we ask of individuals that they put aside time to talk to us as
researchers and then subject themselves to the experience, possibly
unpleasant, of reliving aspects of their lives. The interview process is
fraught with the possibility of us as researchers, with our eyes on the
48
main prize of a higher degree or a good research assessment exercise
(RAE) rating, showing scant respect for individuals as people. In terms
of undertaking qualitative research of the phenomenological bent, this
would be contrary to the attempts we claim we make to enter their lifeworlds. In order to be truly phenomenological in a nursing sense, we
must show absolute respect for the people interviewed. In so doing we
must inform them of what it is we intend to do in our research.
Why not inform people? As far as I can ascertain, the only counterargument to giving people prior warning is that people may reflect on
their experiences and develop their particular self-presentations
concerning the phenomenon under investigation. In other words, in
objective terms, they may lie. Hagan (20) considers self-presentation
and lying to be less of a problem than loss of meaning. If a nurse, for
example presents a story in an interview about how she or he carries
out numerous actions that she or he sees as helpful and then the
researcher subsequently finds that s/he spends an entire shift of duty
reading a tabloid newspaper, we might wish to say that objectively the
nurse lied. However, Hagans point is that if the meaning of
helpfulness for that nurse is that she or he carries out actions X, Y and
Z, then helpfulness holds a particular meaning for him or her
irrespective of whether she or he does what is helpful.
While informing people beforehand of the nature of the
interview may result in their failure to bracket, this is not as important
as the need to ensure their willing compliance and the need to allow
meaning to show through. Indeed in our quest for peoples meaning
of experiences, I consider it is essential to pre-inform them of the
nature of the study, as we require people to tell us the meaning of
their experience, not a story that they have arrived at by bracketing
their experiences.
Examples from the interview process

I will illustrate the process of bracketing and where it may be shown to
have failed, in some extracts from the interview, which took place in
49
the nurses place of work:

Nurse: we worked together for about two and a half years and she
was able to tell me at the end of that period that it was those two things
really, it was about being able to give her time to listen to her and also
about being able to stay with her while she went through that process.
Interviewer: How did you manage that?
In this exchange the nurse is answering a question about what might
be considered an example of helpfulness. Two issues are mentioned:
time and the ability to stay with someone. These would seem to be
fairly obvious and are well documented aspects of helpfulness (6, 21,
22). In an endeavour to bracket this knowledge there was no attempt to
agree or disagree with the original statement, rather an attempt to elicit
more information:
Nurse: one of the things I think that has changed in my own
practice over the last couple of years is I have, er, by paying attention
to it become more able to stay with people who are distressed and I
think there are benefits from that.
Interviewer: Does that have any effect on you?
Nurse: The er ...?
Interviewer: The staying with people who are in distress?
In this instant it appears that bracketing has been successful in that
there is an attempt to elicit more information. However, this may not
be the case. There is the introduction of the idea that being with people
in distress might have an effect on the nurse. This idea is documented
in works on psychiatric nursing (6, 22) and was something that I had
read previously. A better way of approaching the statement by the
nurse while maintaining the presuppositionless attitude would be to
have used the following question as a response: Can you tell me more
about being able to stay with those who are distressed?
The following example indicates what I consider to be a complete
breakdown in the presuppositionless attitude and an introduction of
what could be seen as my own agenda:
Interviewer: You raised a couple of issues earlier on, first of all about
your training and how being non- reflective in a sense was seen to be
50
OK. Have there been any training issues involved in making the jump
from being encouraged to be non-reflective to being reflective? Or has
it been a personal development?
This example is one that remains very strong in my memory. I can
remember condemning myself silently as soon as the question passed my
lips. The issue of training was something that I had discussed with a
nurse academic during the period of formulating my research ideas and
had obviously escaped into this interview arena in a non-reflective,
unbracketed moment. In this example the issue of training could have
been explored more fully by asking the nurse to comment further on
being non-reflective in practice rather than by raising the issue of training.
Conclusion
In conclusion it remains clear that bracketing is an important
methodological principle on which to base the search for and analysis
of the data of phenomenological research. While the process may not
be the exact process envisaged by Husserl, it allows the empirical
researcher to enter the life-world of the other person. Bracketing
however is not a simple process to carry out and requires constant
reflection and vigilance by the researcher. I have indicated examples to
show the process being performed satisfactorily but also where it
might break down.
It has been my intention in this piece to provide a subject for
discussion for those who, like me, embark on phenomenological
research, rather than a prescription for practice.
51
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Beech Bracketing

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What is bracketing and why is it important in phenomenological research?

What is bracketing and why is it important in phenomenological research?

How can bracketing be achieved in empirical research?

How can bracketing be achieved in empirical research?

35

Ian Beech considers the effect of bracketing in phenomenological

According to Moustakas (1): In the Epoch, no position whatsoever

NURSE RESEARCHER, VOL 6 NO 3, SPRING 1999

Bracketing in philosophical work

Bracketing in empirical work

NURSE RESEARCHER, VOL 6 NO 3, SPRING 1999

However, Kvale (9) asserts that in all phenomenological approaches

NURSE RESEARCHER, VOL 6 NO 3, SPRING 1999

Problems that leap out of the brackets

NURSE RESEARCHER, VOL 6 NO 3, SPRING 1999

So, for Crotty, researchers are guilty of imposing a structure on the

NURSE RESEARCHER, VOL 6 NO 3, SPRING 1999

To bracket or not to bracket (intentionality)?

NURSE RESEARCHER, VOL 6 NO 3, SPRING 1999

the persons intentionality. When we consider persons we consider

NURSE RESEARCHER, VOL 6 NO 3, SPRING 1999

NURSE RESEARCHER, VOL 6 NO 3, SPRING 1999

life-world from that in anothers (11). For example, in my own

Bracketing by any other name

NURSE RESEARCHER, VOL 6 NO 3, SPRING 1999

Examples of the process

Attempting to unknow the known

Munhall (18) deems bracketing to be a process of unknowing wherein

NURSE RESEARCHER, VOL 6 NO 3, SPRING 1999

NURSE RESEARCHER, VOL 6 NO 3, SPRING 1999

require of our interviewees that they attempt to bracket preconceptions.

NURSE RESEARCHER, VOL 6 NO 3, SPRING 1999

Examples from the interview process

NURSE RESEARCHER, VOL 6 NO 3, SPRING 1999

the nurses place of work:

NURSE RESEARCHER, VOL 6 NO 3, SPRING 1999

NURSE RESEARCHER, VOL 6 NO 3, SPRING 1999

Journal of Phenomenological Psychology.

NURSE RESEARCHER, VOL 6 NO 3, SPRING 1999

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