title: Embodied-enactive clinical reasoning in physical therapy.
abstract: Clinical reasoning is essential in physical therapy practice. Instrumental approaches and more recent narrative approaches to clinical reasoning guide physical therapists in their understanding of the patient's movement disturbances and help them to plan strategies to improve function. To the extent that instrumental and/or narrative models of clinical reasoning represent impairments as mere physical disturbances, we argue that such models remain incomplete. We draw on a phenomenologically inspired approach to embodied cognition (termed "enactivism") to suggest that the dynamics of lived bodily engagement between physical therapist and patient contribute to and help to constitute the clinical reasoning process. This article outlines the phenomenologically informed enactive perspective on clinical reasoning, with special reference to clinical work that addresses impairments as sequelae of neurological diseases.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health and Care Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences, UiT The Arctic University of Norway , Tromsø , Norway .
authors.forename: Gunn Kristin
authors.initials: GK
authors.lastname: Øberg
authors.forename: Britt
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Normann
authors.forename: Shaun
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gallagher
mesh_terms: D001828:Body Image; D006801:Humans; D008960:Models, Psychological; D026761:Physical Therapy Specialty; D013850:Thinking
keywords: Clinical reasoning; embodiment; enactive intersubjectivity; physical therapy