Article

In recent years, physiotherapists have been increasingly interested in defining
their professional identity. At the heart of this interest lies a fundamental
question about the role that the body plays in defining physiotherapy practice.
Given the importance of the body to physiotherapy, it is surprising how
under-theorized the body is in existing physiotherapy literature. With a few
notable exceptions, the body as a philosophical/theoretical construct has been
almost entirely bypassed by the profession. In this paper the authors argue that
a renewed interest in the meaning given to the body by physiotherapists is
timely, and offer a sociohistorical critique of the role the body has played in
defining physiotherapy practice. We challenge physiotherapists' longstanding
affinity with a biomechanical view of the body, arguing that whilst this approach
may have been critically important in the past, it is now increasingly clear that
a more diverse and inclusive approach to the body will be needed in the future.
The authors explore the notion of embodiment and suggest ways in which embodiment
theory might be applied to physiotherapy practice.

Langue : ANGLAIS