[Phenomenology: a scientific approach to lived experiences]. / La phénoménologie: une approche scientifique des expériences vécues.

Phenomenology is a philosophical current which intends to observe and describe the meaning attributed to an experience from the consciousness of the person who is living it. While it can be applied to different domains, especially to human care it describes subjective phenomenon such as suffering or quality of life. It constitutes as a real discipline, with its epistemology, its specific data (the individual's narration), its method of analysis to find the speech units of significance, and collaboration between researcher and participant (who becomes a co-researcher). Validity of the method is defined by the fact that the phenomenon becomes intelligible. In the representation of the disease and of the patient, the method is close to ethical principles like respect of autonomy and optimization of quality of life.

[Towards a phenomenonology of persistant pain]. / Vers une phénoménologie de la douleur persistante.

OBJECTIVES: It is widely admitted that the management of chronic pain must be global and integrate its subjective dimension. However until now, no method has been made available to health care workers to approach this complex domain, in which the discriminating and emotional components of the pain combine and provide the sufferer with an indefinable feeling that is difficult to communicate to others. We present the preliminary results of a phenomenonological approach of the conscious experience of patients suffering from neuropathic pain. METHODS: Phenomenonology, a philosophical method, was designed to analyze the phenomena from the awareness that the patient has and hence of the description he or she provides of them. We therefore proposed that these patients express their pain in the context of recorded semi-directive interviews on their daily experience of pain and on the manner in which they coped with it. RESULTS: Analysis of the contents of the texts collected revealed the impact of pain on the patient's relationship to him/herself, to friends and family and to the rest of the world, and on their capacity to assess their quality of life. DISCUSSION: The abundance and precision of the answers obtained suggest that a method inspired by phenomenonology could, once adapted to the clinical constraints, render the experience of pain accessible to the health care workers. Such a method would also help to improve the concept of chronic pain. Moreover, because it re-establishes the suffering patient in his or her context as a human being, this method would be of great ethical value.