“I did not respond adequately to your question concerning the role of phenomenology in my work. Phenomenology has, in fact, been the major theoretical framework and methodological tool in my research from the beginning. Thus, I described both theory and method most exhaustively in my thesis. This thesis (defended I 1998) was transformed into a book and published by Kluwer Academic Publishers – who later fused into Springer – in 2001. Springer has defined the book as a “classic text” and holds it available upon request in their “Classical Library”. The electronic version is also available in Amazon’s Kindle-Edition.

I mention this book because most of my colleagues have responded that they find the theoretical chapters in my book far too heavy to read. Still, exactly these chapters give insight into both how the in-depth interviews were performed, how my way of asking and responding contributed to the shaping of the text = the data, and how the analysis was done. This analysis, by means of rules and principles in phenomenology, did the most salient job in the whole process: It allowed me to identify the patterns of lived experience inscribed in the bodily structures. Precisely these patterns have by now, twenty years later, been confirmed by means of biomedical tests (stress-research etc.) and neuro-radiological documentation (brain research), clearly demonstrating the reliability and the validity of a phenomenological approach to embodied hardship and integrity violation.

In short: the extensive excerpts from the original interview-transcripts in my thesis may be illuminative as to “how to talk with people whose complex suffering is medically unexplained yet still real”, which may be a basic point of departure in your work, if I got it right. The book: Kirkengen AL. Inscribed Bodies. Springer 2001.

Kind regards from Oslo

Anna Luise”

Useful Links:

https://www.thesurvivorstrust.org

https://www.met.police.uk/advice/advice-and-information/rsa/rape-and-sexual-assault/support-for-victims-of-rape-and-sexual-assault