This chapter has explored the ‘felt sense’ of Befindlichkeit (cf. Section 3.2.2) in the context of the world of high stakes, revealing mentors’ guilt, tensions, empathy, shared concerns, vulnerability and being burdened. This exploration required sensitivity and receptivity to the participants’ attunement to the world in the mentoring context, focusing on their feelings both explicitly reported and also embedded in their narratives and rich pictures. Befindlichkeit as the Lichtung revealed what mattered and how it mattered to the participants. Guilt as an element of Befindlichkeit, for example, could relate to a situation in which a student was distraught about failing the practice
assessment. It mattered that the assessment was robust and fair (the ‘what’), and this guilt was also an indication of the personal implications of making these judgements (the ‘how’). The discussion here considers the additional insights made possible by
interpreting the world of high stakes through Befindlichkeit.
The two Heideggerian concepts of existential guilt and the ‘call of conscience’ occur when a person makes a moral decision or feels responsible for a difficult situation (Mulhall, 2005). These concepts, which as a feature of being-already-in-the-world can relate to Dasein’s Befindlichkeit and ‘facticity’, have facilitated the development of a deeper exploration of guilt. The ‘call of conscience’ and the existential guilt of Dasein,
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which were identified in relation to the weight of responsibility (cf. Section 5.1),
represented simultaneously heavy responsibility and the unavoidability of guilt. Their guilt was based upon a world of moral values, or ‘public conscience’ (Heidegger, 1962: 323) that the mentors had little power over. Another significant facet of existential guilt taken into consideration was that making a decision closed off any alternative action when only one decision was possible (such as passing or failing a student) (Mulhall, 2005). This led to the idea of the existential guilt of a mentor who was powerless to change moral
values, but who was nevertheless responsible for her decisions and always aware of the possibilities that were ‘closed off’, which can help one to understand the profound
significance of guilt in the mentor lifeworld.
In the data, reference to the other people who featured in the mentor Umwelt persistently showed that the human connections the mentors made with them came from a position of already understanding something about what it meant to occupy their position. This provided a strong reference to facticity, in which Dasein is ‘always already’ thrown in a world and inevitably in the world with others (Dreyfus, 1991: 144). As shown by the way participants shared ‘solicitous concern’ with their colleagues (cf. Section 5.2) they occupied a common world that was also manifest in their perspective taking. Through their Befindlichkeit, the mentors imagined themselves in another’s place, which required the ontological bridge. Taking ontology as a study of ‘possible ways of Being’ (Heidegger, 1962: 31), the ontological bridge can be understood as linking one person with the other’s possible way of being, and this was illustrated in the vocative text where the mentor met with an HEI colleague. However, understanding the concept of the ontological bridge seems to require a leap of faith in accepting that it is possible to know and feel the other’s ‘possibilities for action’. This can be partly resolved by accepting that the participants and the others in their world shared ‘solicitous concern’ as a function of occupying similar worlds of entities and ‘possibilities for action’ towards a common purpose.
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Although they occupied a shared world, in their Befindlichkeit, the mentors were open to the world as individuals and therefore vulnerable. This vulnerability showed in the way that they could feel burdened by the extra responsibilities, and having students could undermine trust within work relationships (cf. Section 5.3). Applying this lens enabled a stronger focus on what was important; namely that the mentors wanted to feel proud of their work and that job satisfaction seemed essential to their well-being. Any threats to their pride and satisfaction in their work energised them to make amends. As already identified (cf. Section 5.3), the mentors’ Eigentlichkeit also became visible. Heidegger (1962) proposed that whereas the uneigentlich self is tranquillised by identifying with the ‘they’, the eigentlich self is instead burdened and anxious. Rather than being lost in the ‘they’, in the world of high stakes the mentors were in a position of personal accountability, and applied and exposed their individual selves to the role.
The use of language was pivotal throughout the interpretation of the data. Rede (‘talk’), as an additional existential Lichtung, provided a medium through which feelings and experience could be directly expressed. ‘Words and their meanings are already world-laden’ (Inwood, 1997: 50), meaning that they are already part of the world they represent and never independent of it. First, therefore, when the participants reported conversations with students and colleagues, it was fruitful to reflect on the context of these conversations, as well as to consider the mentors’ use of language in reporting them during the interviews. Second, participants searching for metaphors, for example ‘locust’ (cf. Section 5.3), often indicated that the experience being conveyed was significant and, moreover, challenging to express accurately. Third, certain linguistic emphases could be detected to give weight to the narratives, for example ‘constant’ interruptions; ‘not only… but also’; and ‘I just wanted to…’. In these ways, the mentors’ Befindlichkeit combined with their Rede to help illuminate their experience.
Chapter summary
This chapter has linked the mentor experience of being aware of high stakes with Heidegger’s concepts relating to Befindlichkeit and facticity within the care structure of
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Dasein. In doing so, it has revealed the existential guilt associated with decisions, the burden of authenticity, how empathy featured in ontological bridging, and some matters of high importance to mentors, such as their personal integrity and their concern for others. In exposing the inherent fragilities within moral judgements, trust and self- regulation, the chapter has helped to show the importance of enhancing awareness of the lived experience of mentors. Chapter 9 provides a further analysis and critique of the concepts identified here. The next chapter presents the second theme: ‘a world of hope for the nursing profession’.
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