An ontological analysis of the experience of pain in injured athletes: contributions of Edith Stein's phenomenology to psychology

Abstract

Psychology has increasingly shown its necessity to the field of high performance sports, and it has been explored by researchers that are interested in studying the frequent experiences of injuries lived by the athletes in this context. Among the challenges indicated by current literature, it can be find the emphasis on the subject that lives the experience, considering him as the principal matter of the psychologist intervention. In this way, assuming a philosophical attitude, and searching for contributions to the development of the area, in 2008, we realized a phenomenological study that had the objective to identify and to comprehend the pain experience lived by injured athletes that were receiving treatment, and therefore, were kept away from the sport. The results of that research, obtained through Husserl's eidetic and transcendental analyses, substantiated the need to deepen the research inside the field of ontology, as it was developed by philosopher and phenomenologist Edith Stein. The aim of this investigation is to make an ontological analysis of the lived experiences of pain in these athletes. This will be done by the analyses of the reports collected, according to the path showed by Edith Stein in her work "Structure of the human person". The intend of this research is, therefore, to substantiate classical phenomenology regarding its application to psychology work, bringing to light the contributions of the method for the ontological/existential comprehension of pain experience lived by athletes. The philosophical ground that is the base of Stein's ontology intend to reach the possibility of intervention in a personal and integral level, reaching the generality/universality that this kind of analyses implies. (AU)