Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- I. Phenomenology and Nursing -- 1. The Patient, the Nurse, and the Philosopher: Seeing Rose Through the Eyes of Merleau-Ponty -- 2. If a Lion Could Talk: Phenomenological Interviewing and Interpretation -- II. Nursing and the Human Experience of the Human Body -- 3. The Human Experience of the Human Body -- 4. "It's Like Getting Kicked by a Mule": Living With an Implanted Defibrillator -- 5. "Now It's Me and This Pain": Living With Chronic Pain -- III. Nursing and the Human Experience of Other People -- 6. The Human Experience of the World of Others -- 7. "We All Became Diabetics": The Experience of Living With a Diabetic Sibling -- 8. "Walking in the Dark": The Experience of Living With a Daughter Who Has an Eating Disorder -- 9. "She Became an Alien": The Father's Experience of Living With Postpartum Depression -- IV. Nursing and the Human Experience of Time -- 10. The Human Experience of Time -- 11. "One Day You're Working and the Next Day You're an Invalid": Recovering After a Stroke -- 12. "The Point of No Return": Formerly Abused Women's Experience of Staying Out of the Abusive Relationship -- 13. "It Was the Dark Night of the Soul": Wresting Meaning From a Time of Spiritual Distress -- V. Nursing and the Human Experience of the World -- 14. The Human Experience of the Non-Human World -- 15. "Eventually It'll Be Over": The Dialectic Between Confinement and Freedom in the World of the Hospitalized Patient -- 16. "Like a Bunch of Cattle": The Patient's Experience of the Outpatient Health Care Environment -- Epilogue -- References -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Z.