Science is thought to describe, categorize, and explain phenomena that occur in the world. Between them, however, explanation is conceived as the core of scientific endeavor (e.g. Salmon 1989). Also, Husserl writes about explanation (Erklärung) as one of the objectives of phenomenology (e.g. Husserl 1980). In my paper, I discuss how phenomenology relates to various models of scientific explanation. I argue that phenomenology cannot be identified with the nomological-deductive model (Sowa 2012) or with a type of personal explanation (Williams 2020). Furthermore, although there are some similarities with these types of scientific explanation, phenomenology does not provide a genuine scientific explanation of mental phenomena. Next, I follow the distinction between explanation and understanding (Lipton 2009) and argue, that instead of an explanation, phenomenology provides a constitutive understanding of mental phenomena. I conclude that despite phenomenology not providing a scientific explanation of mental phenomena, phenomenological understanding significantly contributes to building explanatory models.