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2 Chapter 1 individual. Consistent descriptions of a phenomenon’s unfolding reported by many people across varying situations yield a pattern capable of describing how an event has been experienced. This move from the individual level to the small group level is accomplished by exploring similarities and differences in multiple accounts of the same phenomenon . These experiential patterns represent the experiences of people participating in a particular research study and there is no claim that they apply more widely. The goal of this type of research is to understand aspects of the lived world—that is, the world as it appears in personal experience to unique individuals in certain times and situations. Researchers in this field often distinguish between two types of conscious experience. Consider figure 1. What appears to you? You may see (experience) a whirling spiral. Yet, tracing any segment of the coil towards its beginning or end reveals multiple circles rather than one continuous twist. Thinking about this experience revises your first impression of the figure and helps to explain why this figure is sometimes called the False Spiral. The type of consciousness involved in the example of the spiral is our simple (and immediate) presence to what is happening (Van Manen 1990) and is usually called pre-reflective consciousness or a direct experience. 5 As such, it is the awareness we have before we get ‘up in our heads’ to reflect on something we have previously experienced. Reflective consciousness is that mode of consciousness, which looks back at direct experiences, such as Reproduced with permission from the British Journal of Psychology. © The British Psychological Society. ...

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