The Expression Of The Psychosomatic Body From A Phenomenological Perspective

This book is a contribution to the understanding of psychosomatic health problems. Inspired by the work of the French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty, a phenomenological theory of psychosomatics is worked out as an alternative to traditional, biomedical thinking. The patient who presents somatic symptoms with no clearly discernible lesion or dysfunction presents a problem to the traditional health care system. These symptoms are medically unexplainable, constituting an anomaly for the materialistic understanding of ill health that underlies the practice of modern medicine. The traditional biomedical model is not appropriate for understanding a number of health issues that we call “psychosomatic” and for this reason, biomedical theory and practice must be complemented by another theoretical understanding in order to adequately grasp the psychosomatic problematic. This book establishes a complementary understanding of psychosomatic ill health in terms of a non-reductionistic model allowing for the (psychosomatic) expression of the lived body. A thorough presentation of the work Merleau-Ponty is followed by the author’s application of his thinking to the phenomenon of psychosomatic pathology.

The Phenomenology of Pain is the first book-length investigation of its topic to appear in English. Groundbreaking, systematic, and illuminating, it opens a dialogue between phenomenology and such disciplines as cognitive science and cultural anthropology to argue that science alone cannot clarify the nature of pain experience without incorporating a phenomenological approach. Building on this premise, Saulius Geniusas develops a novel conception of pain grounded in phenomenological principles: pain is an aversive bodily feeling with a distinct experiential quality, which can only be given in original first-hand experience, either as a feeling-sensation or as an emotion. Geniusas crystallizes the fundamental methodological principles that underlie phenomenological research. On the basis of those principles, he offers a phenomenological clarification of the fundamental structures of pain experience and contests the common conflation of phenomenology with introspectionism. Geniusas analyzes numerous pain dissociation syndromes, brings into focus the de-personalizing and re-personalizing nature of chronic pain experience, and demonstrates what role somatization and psychologization play in pain experience. In the process, he advances Husserlian phenomenology in a direction that is not explicitly worked out in Husserl’s own writings.

This book equips readers with the knowledge required to improve diagnosis and treatment and to implement integrated prevention programs in patients with eating and weight disorders. It does so by providing a comprehensive, up-to-date review of research findings and theoretical assumptions concerning the interface and interactions between body image and such disorders as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, other specified feeding and eating disorders, orthorexia nervosa, overweight, and obesity. After consideration of issues of definition and classification, the opening part of the book examines the concept of body image from a variety of viewpoints. A series of chapters are then devoted to the assessment of the multidimensional construct “body image”, to dysmorphophobia/body dysmorphic disorder, and to muscle dysmorphia. The third part discusses body image in people suffering from different eating disorders and/or overweight or obesity, and two final chapters focus on body image in the integrated prevention of eating disorders and obesity, and cultural differences regarding body image. The book will be of interest to all health professionals who work in the fields of psychiatry, clinical psychology, eating disorders, obesity, body image, adolescence, public health, and prevention.

The Routledge Handbook of Well-Being explores diverse conceptualisations of well-being, providing an overview of key issues and drawing attention to current debates and critiques. Taken as a whole, this important work offers new clarification of the widely used notion of well-being, focusing particularly on experiential perspectives. Bringing together leading authors from around the world, Routledge Handbook of Well-Being reflects on: What it is that is experienced by humans that can be called well-being. What we know about how to understand it. How well-being is manifested in human endeavours through a wide range of disciplines, including the arts. This comprehensive reference work will provide an authoritative overview for students, practitioners, researchers and policy makers working in or concerned with well-being, health, illness and the relation between all three across a range of disciplines, from sociology, healthcare and economics to philosophy and the creative arts.

Physiotherapy is arriving at a critical point in its history. Since World War I, physiotherapy has been one of the largest allied health professions and the established provider of orthodox physical rehabilitation. But ageing populations of increasingly chronically ill people, a growing scepticism towards biomedicine and the changing economy of healthcare threaten physiotherapy’s long-held status. Paradoxically, physiotherapy’s affinity for treating the ‘body-as-machine’ has resulted in an almost complete inability to identify the roots of the profession’s present problems, or define possible ways forward. Physiotherapists need to engage in critically informed theoretical discussion about the profession’s past, present and future - to explore their practice from economic, philosophical, political and sociological perspectives. The End of Physiotherapy aims to explain how physiotherapy has arrived at this critical point in its history, and to point to a new future for the profession. The book draws on critical analyses of the historical and social conditions that have made present-day physiotherapy possible. Nicholls examines some of the key discourses that have had a positive impact on the profession in the past, but now threaten to derail it. This book makes it possible for physiotherapists to think otherwise about their profession and their day-to-day practice. It will be essential reading for scholars and students of physiotherapy, interprofessional and community rehabilitation, as well as appealing to those working in medical sociology, the medical humanities, medical history and health care policy.

Rehabilitation is dedicated to helping people not only survive, but also thrive. Despite this complex goal, the organizing principles of rehabilitation still rely on biomedicine to construct disability as a problem of impaired bodies. Rehabilitation professionals are committed to helping to enhance people's lives, but many struggle with how to do s

The stories of fathers caring for non-verbal children and how these experiences alter their understandings of care, masculinity, and living a full life. Vulnerable narratives of fatherhood are few and far between; rarer still is an ethnography that delves into the practical and emotional realities of intensive caregiving. Grounded in the intimate everyday lives of men caring for children with major physical and intellectual disabilities, Worlds of Care undertakes an exploration of how men shape their identities in the context of caregiving. Anthropologist Aaron J. Jackson fuses ethnographic research and creative nonfiction to offer an evocative account of what is required for men to create habitable worlds and find some kind of “normal” when their circumstances are anything but. Combining stories from his fieldwork in North America with reflections on his own experience caring for his severely disabled son, Jackson argues that care has the potential to transform our understanding of who we are and how we relate to others.