Method development included the creation of new theory-driven interview guides and analytical strategies to examine how different aspects of one’s sense of self or self-identity can be altered, positively or negatively, contributing to suffering or healing. These methods fall under a theory-driven approach called Front-Loaded Phenomenology (FLP). General methodological guidance on conducting FLP studies was created for researchers who would like to apply this approach in other contexts.
Empirical research involved two qualitative studies of suffering and healing. The first study focused on suffering, characterizing how pain can disrupt one’s bodily and narrative aspects of self. Results included important accounts of pain that overwhelmed thoughts and self-reflective capacities and disrupted foundational aspects of self-experience, including senses of agency, bodily ownership, and time. Participants reported that these experiences were incapacitating, dehumanizing, and dissociating. Some of the findings are remarkably similar to first-hand accounts of torture. Results support the expansion of traditional understandings of suffering that require self-reflection. The second study characterized journeys from suffering to healing, focusing on the different ways one’s sense of self can be positively altered after it was disrupted by pain. Results included the development of a novel theoretical framework that depicts different paths to healing, including restoring, revising, or reinventing aspects of self that were disrupted.
Theory development also included extensive academic discussion and debate on the nature of the self, suffering, and healing. Theory development regarding these concepts is ongoing.
Below are key publications during the Fellowship, with additional methodological, empirical, and theoretical publications forthcoming.
Stilwell P, Gallagher S, Køster A, Ravn SL, Wideman TH, Fernandez AV. Front-Loaded Phenomenology in Qualitative Research: An Introduction and Practical Overview. International Journal of Qualitative Methods (IJQM). 2025; 24. doi: 10.1177/16094069251408663.
Stilwell P, Gagnon-Mailhot M, Hudon A, McIntyre V, Meldrum K, Pagé MG, Gallagher S, Wideman TH. When pain overwhelms the self: A phenomenological study of a new mode of suffering, based on adults’ recollections of their worst pain episodes. Journal of Pain. 2025; 32:105413. doi: 10.1016/j.jpain.2025.105413.
Wideman TH, Stilwell P, Gagnon-Mailhot M, Hudon A, Meldrum K, McIntyre V, Pagé MG, Gallagher S. Defining pain-related suffering requires partnership with people living with pain and careful critical thought: a commentary on the proposed definition by Noe-Steinmüller et al. PAIN. 2024;165(10):2387. doi: 10.1097/j.pain.0000000000003367.
