The philosopher of ambiguity: exploring stories of spirituality of people with aphasia through the lens of Merleau-Ponty

Abstract

Spirituality as a concept has only recently begun to be considered in speech and language therapy research and practice, and phenomenology as a research methodology is also not widely used in SLT research. Yet, concepts propounded by the phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty arguably offer a useful theoretical framework from which to view certain aspects of SLT including the concept of spirituality and how this is expressed by people with a communication difficulty. In this project, eight people with aphasia were interviewed about their spirituality. The interviews were transcribed, themes identified and stories created. These stories were viewed using one of the concepts propounded by Merleau-Ponty, namely ambiguity

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