This article is concerned with drawing attention to the importance of the kind of knowing that emerges through the tacit, contextual, contemporaneousness of human experience, of particular relevance to psychotherapeutic practice and research. Without disregarding theory, it will be argued that it is important to question the nature of theory as it it has been abstracted from human experience meaning that there are limitations on application, without understanding the uniqueness of every situation, whether practice or research. The aim is to attempt to show how seemingly coincidental experiences can lead to a creative process of thought, seen here as a phenomenological approach to inquiry. Kierkegaard's notion of possibility is explored showing the difference between being open to how knowing comes into being through experience as opposed to knowing applied through theory. Boss in particular helps to clarify some aspects of the epistemological differences between existential and psychoanalytic thought. Subsequently Derrida, shows how there can be a failure to see beyond theories of mastery in terms of what they might usefully reveal about our own need for mastery as well as ways in which theory might create resistance to other ways of knowing. Ultimately, mastery is seen as avoidance of death.

Content and Focus: This article will discuss phenomenology and phenomenological research methods, and through an exploration of the case of Empirical Phenomenological Analysis (EPA) will explore the possibility of a phenomenological approach to research through reverie. With regard to the relationship between phenomenology and ‘phenomenological research’, Husserlian phenomenology implies ‘research’, therefore, making the term ‘phenomenological research’ redundant and a misnomer. However, there exists an abundance of ‘phenomenological research methods’, which despite claiming to focus on the lived experienced of the participant, stand contrary to phenomenology in that they are broadly empirical, systematised and psychologise the notion of phenomenology. The case of EPA, which is a phenomenological research method, empirical in nature and mediated in line with ‘scientific practices’ will be discussed in depth. In turn, through the critical analysis of EPA, we see the need for an alternative approach to research, which is apposite with phenomenology’s philosophical aims. As a result, reverie, which includes abstract musings, ruminations and wonderings, will be discussed as an approach to research through phenomenology. It is argued that reverie, contrary to traditional phiinomenolhgijiall research methods’, facilitates access to the participants’ concerns through an attendance to subjective and intersubjective experience in the research process, enabling the relational to emerge in and through research.

The unexpected invention of a game with my grandchildren provided a new way of thinking about the nature of such unpredictable moments in therapy. The experience brought together a number of ideas, considered through the view of language taken by Merleau-Ponty where the chaotic primitive layers that pervade language are seen as having primacy over the rules of linguistics such as those set out by Saussure. Saussure is seen as providing a way of understanding linguistic structure whilst at the same time opening a number of ambiguities that then allow a way for thinking about language differently through Merleau-Ponty's emphasis on the usage of language (la parole) as opposed the structural aspects of language (la langue). Initially, Winnicott's ideas around the 'spontaneous gesture' are utilised to help show how this kind of unpredictable expression appears as something alive. Merleau-Ponty then shows how language as gestural phenomena takes hold of us through our bodies. Further questions then arise about the method in therapeutic practice and research. Here, it is argued that when the method is given primacy over experience, we are in a position that seeks the already known, which will not, therefore, permit some new expression to break through.

This article outlines differences between phenomenology and method, with implications for psychotherapy and psychotherapeutic research. Drawing on a study exploring how mental health nurses are therapeutic, we focus on how taking experience seriously is encouraged through being phenomenological. We look at how research method and theory - and fixed beliefs or ideas - tend to constrict language, so that personal (sensual) meaning is lost or curtailed. Being phenomenological instead 'opens up' language and consequently meaning, in an act of truthfulness through speaking one's experience, which we see as both psychotherapeutic and a valid form of research.

PURPOSE:The purpose of this paper is to outline research which aimed to explore psychotherapists' experience of working with despair, in the UK prison setting, through a qualitative phenomenological approach. Within the forensic psychological literature, despair is considered a pathology, associated with suicide and self-harm, resulting from the prisoners histories and the coercive prison setting. In turn, therapeutic writings outline the importance of therapy in the prison setting with despair in providing coping skills, containment and learning opportunities for the prisoners involved.DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH:Within the study, ten psychotherapists were interviewed as to their experience of working with clients in despair in the prison setting. The data were analysed via the phenomenological research method Empirical Phenomenological Analysis (EPA), and a secondary analysis through reverie.FINDINGS:Through the analysis by EPA, despair emerged in the prison setting as a destabilising phenomenon to which there was no protocol for working with it. Participants also described the prisoners' despair and the despairing prison setting, touching on their own sense of vulnerability and despair. However, drawing on the secondary analysis by reverie, the researcher also became aware of how the phenomenon of despair emerged not simply through the said, but also through the intersubjective.ORIGINALITY/VALUE:It was therefore through the secondary analysis by reverie that the importance of the attendance to aspects of intersubjectivity in prison research emerged. This paper contributes to the therapeutic writings on despair in the prison setting, alongside holding implications for qualitative research in the prison setting.

In this paper issues related to adult learning, such as self-directed and experiential learning are shown to hold a trace of the unknown, which has implications for psychotherapy training and practice. The unknown is traced through the problematic of individualistic approaches that restrict the emergence of unknowns by limiting possibility of the other, hindering recognition of our own cultural position and seeking to avoid anxiety. Learning is also shown to have links with experiences of change and loss, having in common the generation of anxiety, seen as both the driving force to know and the need to close down unknowing. Subsequently, learning is viewed as involving the potential to repeat the already known as well as opening up the possibility for something new. Psychoanalysis and continental philosophy are shown, in different ways, to help our understanding of the reasons for the anxiety occurring in times of transition, also showing the way fragmentary experiences act as a reminder of death. It is proposed that the relational aspects of learning are an important factor in learning to tolerate the anxiety and adult learning is thus seen as requiring possibility of the other, in relationship, in order to permit the unknown.

This article will consider the therapeutics of despair according to Kierkegaard [Kierkegaard, S. (1989). The sickness unto death: A Christian psychological exposition for edification and awakening (A. Hannay, Trans.). London: Penguin Classics.] and the forensic literature, with particular reference to despair in the prison setting. The therapeutic resolution of despair as outlined by Kierkegaard (1989) can be seen to start at a potentially different definition of therapeutics from the forensic literature which, in promoting psychotherapy for despair, focuses on the management and treatment of symptoms of despair. For Kierkegaard (1989), despair is not seen as pathology but fundamentally over the self and a characteristic of the spirit. Despair is therefore not something that can be isolated and subsequently 'known', and accordingly its resolution is, ultimately, a beyond [Berthold-Bond, D. (1998). Lunar musings? An investigation of Hegel's and Kierkegaard's portraits of Despair. Religious Studies, 34, 33-59.]. This is contrary to the forensic literature where despair is viewed as a pathology and psychotherapy is implicated as an appropriate treatment for patients in despair, in ensuring patient safety and promoting recovery [Towl, G.J. (Ed.). (2003). Psychology in prisons. Oxford: BPS Blackwell.]. This article will therefore consider two aspects; first, the therapeutic resolution of despair according to Kierkegaard (Berthold-Bond, 1998), and second, the forensic literature concerning despair in psychotherapy.

A way of approaching post existential practice is illustrated through the idea that relationships occur in the between, which is largely unknown, except as suggested by Laing, through our experience. A difficulty occurs, however, when we are not able to be grounded in our experience which could be seen as a form of ontological insecurity brought about by intolerance of unknowing. It is argued here that this intolerance can lead us to replace the possibility of our own experience with some one else’s story of their experience which is presented to us as theory, which could then be seen as an obstruction of the between. Post existentialism does not, however, discard theory but requires the ability to: firstly engage with our experience through the between, deferring the need to reach for theories; secondly question whether the ideas that do occur to us are simply a return to theory as a familiar place needed in the face of our own anxiety or dread and; thirdly remain open to where the return to such formulations becomes a way of reconstituting more of the same rather than permitting difference. Such aspects are firstly explored in terms of the relational as between (Laing) and as transitional space (Winnicott). Secondly this is followed by a return to some existential phenomenological ideas which illustrate something of the dread of possibility (Kierkegaard) as well as offering an approach which may help us to sustain attention to experience in relationship (Heidegger, Merleau Ponty). Thirdly the postmodern is then seen to raise questions about the way knowing and language can create a binding that closes down (Derrida) whereas the idea of the semiotic (Kristeva) illustrates how something threatens rupture and moves us elsewhere than intentionality. In turn too much rupture can lead to chaos thus some form of structure is seen as necessary. Here the post existential with its post phenomenology provides an intersection between existential phenomenology, psychoanalytic and postmodern thought where a between is permitted through a willingness to continually question in order to hold open rather than assimilate.

The aim of this study is to develop a methodology, through phenomenology, for exploring the unknown in the acquisition of therapeutic knowledge. An exploration is made of the way various writers attempt to explain the unknown raising a problematic about how the unknown can become defined as if known whereas others attempt to hold open the question of the unknown of the unknown. It is argued that learning places emphasis on knowing whereas in psychotherapy there is increasing interest in learning to tolerate doubt and uncertainty. Ten participants were interviewed in terms of the question: "how do psychotherapists learn about the unknown "? An empirical phenomenological method was utilised to translate a general descriptive structure of the phenomenon. Findings suggest learning about the unknown as acquired during a process of lifelong enquiry through interrelated experiences including: the known, training, therapy and supervision, practice and just living. Furthermore immersion in experiences and relationships highlighted recognition of the spiritual or mystical, opening up hope in the face of fear of death and repeated disillusionment, with realisation that no single theory explains everything. In detranslating findings, examples of a second analysis suggested that reverie seemed more helpful in exploring intersubjective phenomena, during interviews where the known of the researcher and participants was disrupted, compared to empirical psychological phenomenology which separates phenomenology from philosophy. Reverie was explored as an approach, which can attend more to aspects where something other than dialectic of birth and death has possibility, and the unknown emerges when one disrupts the intentional position of the other.

This article explores an alternative way of looking at the generation of research questions whereby they can emerge from experience and the unknown, thus the researcher's experience in psychotherapeutic research is highlighted, not as a background to the research but as a vital element of the research. It will be argued that psychotherapeutic research is an intersubjective process and as such questions surface between a series of relationships; in psychotherapeutic research we need to consider, therefore, the speaking subject as always speaking to the other, as subject to the other. It will be argued that Continental philosophy leads to an opening up of this space between rather than concocting a story to fit a particular epistemology. The space between leads to possibility and the unknown in research and learning from experience which in turn generates anxiety leading to difficulties in speaking of experience. Thus through a series of disparate experiences an attempt is made to create a clearing and question why we tend to seek closure, enclosure rather than abiding with the unknown which becomes a focus for research. The phenomenology of Merleau Ponty is seen as a phenomenology of relations that neither assimilates nor rejects the other, but holds a tension between.