Kunnskap om kroppen mellom grep og begrep

Sammanfattning: This study explores the immanent paradigm in clinical physiotherapy, a professional field where knowledge to a large extent is demonstrated in skilled action whose embodied character prevents this kind of knowledge from being completely articulated. The following is a hermeneutic study in which a first person perspective, based on years of professional experience, is employed as the basis for interpretation and analysis. The knowledge and insights derived from this approach are often framed through the deliberate methodological use of analogy and metaphor. The practice of clinical physiotherapy is often modelled on the mechanic's workshop inasmuch as bodily problems and diseases are putatively repaired through a technically skilled approach. This study explores the problematic nature of this dualist paradigm in relation to the professional challenge of encountering bodily experiences such as absence and alienation.This instrumental model of knowledge and practice leaves little room for the physiotherapist's own professional experience to be a source of knowledge through reflection. The study points at phenomenological perspectives on the living body as an alternative epistemological framework of the practice of physiotherapy.