[Access to first-person experience in research into mental health].

This article examines the epistemological and methodological challenges of studying first-person experience in mental health research, focusing on qualitative approaches. It reviews the historical and conceptual principles of phenomenology and medical anthropology, describing descriptive, psychological/transcendental, and hermeneutical/interpretative phenomenological methods. It explores medical anthropology's contributions to understanding illness experience and narrative forms. The article concludes with a debate on accessing first-person experience, considering the distinction between experience and narrative based on these theoretical frameworks.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This article presents and discusses the epistemological and methodological challenges related to the empirical study of first-person experience in mental health research. Considering the field of qualitative research, the methodological principles of phenomenology and medical anthropology are examined from a historical and conceptual perspective. The main operational concepts of the phenomenological method applied to empirical research, as well as their two main lines of approach, namely descriptive and psychological/transcendental phenomenology and hermeneutical or interpretative phenomenology, are described. The contributions of medical anthropology are studied especially with respect to the experience of illness and its forms of narrative. Lastly, considering the distinction between experience and narrative based on the theoretical benchmarks of phenomenology and medical anthropology, a more in-depth debate on access to first-person experience is conducted.