| Phenomenology and its application in medicine. | |
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MedLine Citation:
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PMID: 21103940 Owner: NLM Status: In-Data-Review |
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
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Phenomenology is a useful methodology for describing and ordering experience. As such, phenomenology can be specifically applied to the first person experience of illness in order to illuminate this experience and enable health care providers to enhance their understanding of it. However, this approach has been underutilized in the philosophy of medicine as well as in medical training and practice. This paper demonstrates the usefulness of phenomenology to clinical medicine. In order to describe the experience of illness, we need a phenomenological approach that gives the body a central role and acknowledges the primacy of perception. I present such a phenomenological method and show how it could usefully illuminate the experience of illness through a set of concepts taken from Merleau-Ponty. His distinction between the biological body and the body as lived, analysis of the habitual body, and the notions of motor intentionality and intentional arc are used to capture the experience of illness. I then discuss the applications this approach could have in medicine. These include narrowing the gap between objective assessments of well-being in illness and subjective experiences which are varied and diverse; developing a more attuned dialogue between physicians and patients based on a thick understanding of illness; developing research methods that are informed by phenomenology and thus go beyond existing qualitative methods; and providing medical staff with a concrete understanding of the impact of illness on the life-world of patients. |
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Authors:
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Havi Carel |
Publication Detail:
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Type: Journal Article |
Journal Detail:
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Title: Theoretical medicine and bioethics Volume: 32 ISSN: 1573-0980 ISO Abbreviation: Theor Med Bioeth Publication Date: 2011 Feb |
Date Detail:
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Created Date: 2011-01-24 Completed Date: - Revised Date: - |
Medline Journal Info:
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Nlm Unique ID: 9805378 Medline TA: Theor Med Bioeth Country: Netherlands |
Other Details:
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Languages: eng Pagination: 33-46 Citation Subset: E; IM |
Affiliation:
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Department of History, Philosophy and Politics, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK, havi.carel@uwe.ac.uk. |
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From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine
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