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.

This paper will analyse the provision of rehabilitation to injured workers with a registered WorkCover claim in South Australia. It presents the comments of key parties on the practice of rehabilitation, approaches to service delivery, and contradictions and paradoxes of the reality of the practice. The comments of workers, employers, case managers, medical practitioners, and of the rehabilitation providers themselves give ample evidence of the complexity of the demands placed upon providers in this system. Emphasis is placed upon their role in presenting the realities of the situation honestly to the worker and in effectively communicating to other stakeholders the particular strategies needed to overcome barriers to successful return-to-work outcomes.

This paper reports conversational interviews with key stakeholders in order to analyse the critical role of the treating medical practitioner in the management of injured workers with a registered WorkCover claim in South Australia. The comments expose the dilemma of treating general practitioners in their dual roles of “gatekeeper” and service provider against a backdrop of the ongoing demands and pressures from claims agents, vested interest groups, litigation, pervading antagonistic process relationships, inflexible work settings and the preoccupation with containing costs. The study highlights the need for treating medical practitioners to understand the WorkCover system and legislation. It is suggested further that their practice would benefit from holistic management, supportive care, clear language, respectful communication, timely medical updates and helpful professional attitudes. It was noted that many medical practitioners favour some redesign of medical management practice encompassing the development of a leadership role and the provision of progressive medical management plans in order to maximise successful return-to-work outcomes for injured workers.

The Compulsory Third Party (CTP) system in Queensland is in need of modification to ensure efficacious rehabilitation outcomes for individuals injured in motor vehicle accidents (MVAs). In an attempt to address this concern, a study was conducted to examine the perceptions of three major stakeholders in this CTP process, namely, insurers, rehabilitation providers and solicitors. Further, the systemic chemistry inherent to the system was explored. Pervasive within this study was the notion that a culture of blame resulted from competing stakeholder agendas, the nature of the partnerships established between these stakeholders, and the widespread confusion resulting from the interplay of complex systemic factors. These systemic factors contributed significantly to ineffective rehabilitation and return to work for persons injured in MVAs. This paper is the first in a series about these concerns.

The global community is experiencing widespread and rapid changes to labour-force participation with increasing expectations of flexible and highly adaptable skill sets. Workers can expect demands to acquire new, and augment existing, competencies as an integral part of the labour contract. Continuing education, professional development, augmentation of competencies and lifelong learning are the occupational mantras of the millennium. If these are the expectations of those already in the workforce, what then do support professionals expect for their clients, such as rehabilitation counsellors who have considerable skills in facilitating the re-entry of clients to the work-force? This paper examines several questions of continuing skilling and provides a set of recommendations with relevance to contemporary professional practice.