Micro-phenomenology, a research method that combines phenomenological and empirical approaches, aims to provide reliable access to first-person conscious experiences through structured interviews. The paper examines how this method justifies first- and second-person access to experiences, addresses concerns that verbalization may construct rather than reveal experiences, and explores whether integrating mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative) could broaden its explanatory scope. The analysis suggests that micro-phenomenology can transform subjective experiences into intersubjectively accessible data, though questions remain about the mediation of interviews and categorization processes.
Emotions are fundamentally embodied and intersubjective, not merely cognitive appraisals. Drawing on phenomenology and enactivism, this chapter argues that emotions constitute our experience of the world as meaningful and are inseparable from existential vulnerability—an ontological condition rooted in the lived body's exposure to others and contingency. The introduction surveys competing theories of emotion (cognitive, perceptual, feeling-based, motivational) and contends that all insufficiently address the lived body's richness. The volume's three parts move from phenomenological analyses of emotional life and vulnerability, through psychopathological perspectives, to the transformative role of embodied emotions in psychotherapy, establishing embodiment as the conceptual bridge integrating emotion theory, psychopathology, and psychotherapy.