Creating a synthesis of intentionality: the role of the bracketing facilitator.

The role of a bracketing facilitator during the analysis phase of phenomenological research is discussed. As a research colleague, a bracketing facilitator plays an important part in a fellow researcher's task of uncovering his or her constitutive relationship with the research phenomenon. The primary task of a bracketing facilitator is providing assistance for a colleague in moving away from the usual cognitive mode of thinking during data analysis and into a state of emotional sensitivity to personal history and experience of the phenomenon. A step-by-step approach to the search for personal connections is presented, including an example of the process of facilitating this search. A table of guidelines that includes specific points for the act of bracketing as well as the content to be bracketed is intended as a tool for the development of phenomenological description.