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Re-embodiment and Rehabilitation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 February 2012

Keri Chiveralls
Keri Chiveralls*
Affiliation:
University of Adelaide, Australia
*
University of Adelaide, Centre for Labour Research, Tower Building, Pultney Street, SA 5005, Australia, Email: keri.chiveralls@adelaide.edu.au
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Abstract

This article examines the process of rehabilitation through Wendy Seymour's concept of re-embodiment and Pierre Bourdieu's concept of habitus. It argues that rehabilitation practitioners need to focus not only on the damaged body of the patient, but also on the patient's subjective experiences of health and illness and the wider social context in which they occur. The process of disembodiment caused by periods of injury or sickness creates a rupture in the ordinary experience of the individual in society. In doing so, it renders both the individual habitus and ordinary societal conceptions problematic. Individuals must then embark on a process of transformation or identity reconstruction, whereby they again come to understand themselves as “healthy”. As rehabilitation workers are likely to work closely with people over an extended period of time, they are in an excellent position to consider the person not just as an objective patient, but as a person or subject influenced by many overlapping social forces and relationships that have an impact upon their reconstitution of identity, their rehabilitation and re-embodiment. Thus, rehabilitation as re-embodiment offers an opportunity for both the patient and practitioner to reconsider themselves and their place in society, and in doing so, to effect social change both within themselves and society at large.

Type
Articles
Information
The Australian Journal of Rehabilitation Counselling , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , January 2003 , pp. 73 - 81
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2003

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