Through the Lens of Merleau-Ponty

This article discusses how Merleau-Ponty’s existential phenomenology may serve as the lens and theoretical frame in a qualitative research study of the lived experience of patients, their families, and nurses during critical illness in the intensive care unit. Merleau-Ponty's unique existential concepts of corporeality, spatiality, temporality, and relationality provide a useful foundation and serve as a unifying philosophy of science in understanding this nursing phenomenon that is grounded in philosophical beliefs about humans, and the holistic nature of professional nursing that is not amenable to experimental investigative research methods. The research sheds light on the patients, families, and nurses’ embodied temporal, spatial, and relational horizons, and reveals a new conception of critical illness that will provide caregivers with knowledge about effective humanistic, and more holistic care, that opens new ways for coping amongst patients and their families, as well as caregiving possibilities for the nurses. Findings from this qualitative inquiry can help contribute knowledge about family engagement that would impact the provision of care in the intensive care unit, thus improving patient, family, and organizational outcomes.