title: Embodiment and self in reorientation to everyday life following severe traumatic brain injury.
abstract: People with severe traumatic brain injury (sTBI) are often young and need long-term follow-up as many suffer complex motor, sensory, perceptual and cognitive impairments. This paper aims to introduce phenomenological notions of embodiment and self as a framework to help understand how people with sTBI experience reorientation to everyday life, and to inform clinical practice in neurological physiotherapy. The impairments caused by the sTBI may lead to a sense of alienation of one's own body and changes in operative intentionality and in turn disrupt the reorganization of self, identity, everyday life and integration/co-construction of meaning with others. Applying a first-person conception of the body may extend insights into the importance of an adapted and individualized approach to strengthen the sensory, perceptual and motor body functions, which underpin the pre-reflective and reflective aspects of the self. It seems important to integrate these aspects, while also paying attention to optimizing co-construction of meaning for the person with sTBI in the treatment context. This requires understanding the patient as an experiencing and expressive body, a lived body (body-as-subject) and not just the body-as-object as is favored in more traditional frameworks of physiotherapy.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiotherapy, Nordland Hospital Trust , Bodø , Norway and.
authors.forename: Marianne
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sivertsen
authors.forename: Britt
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Normann
mesh_terms: D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000523:psychology* / Q000534:rehabilitation; D006801:Humans; D012649:Self Concept
keywords: Embodiment; phenomenology; physiotherapy; self; traumatic brain injury