Reflections upon the use of existential-phenomenological methods to study elderly consumers in care homes

The world's population is ageing at an unprecedented rate. This has prompted policy makers and the academic community to call for improved understandings of what it means to be elderly. In response, this paper reflects upon the use of existential-phenomenological methods in researching the everyday lived experiences of elderly consumers in care homes. To this end, it is argued that such qualitative methods enable researchers to obtain deep, meaningful and worthy insights that relate to what it means to be a consumer within such a context. However, through the use of introspective techniques, it is argued that existential-phenomenological methods can be seen to have a dark side that could seduce deep feelings of depression to emerge within the researcher's lived experience. Subsequently, it is argued that introspective techniques can be used as a form of therapy to liberate negative feelings that may surround and permeate such encountered truths.