Using philosopher Edmund Husserl‘s interpretation of phenomenology;
the essence is the genesis of a phenomenon. Every phenomenon can be
fragmented down into pieces and those pieces can be explored. A deeper
understanding of the pieces will yield a deeper understanding of the
whole. The essences are stages by which phenomena inaugurate
themselves in our consciousness and gradually develop before our inner
eye and allow us to assign meanings to what we experience. (Van Manen,
1990, p.25)