Book reviewed in this article: The Meaning of Illness. By S. Kay Toombs.

This book provides an accessible comprehensive exploration of phenomenological theory and research methods and is geared specifically to the needs of therapists ...

Fredrik Svenaeus' book is a delight to read. Not only does he exhibit keen understanding of a wide range of topics and figures in both medicine and philosophy, but he manages to bring them together in an innovative manner that convincingly demonstrates how deeply these two significant fields can be and, in the end, must be mutually enlightening. Medicine, Svenaeus suggests, reveals deep but rarely explicit themes whose proper comprehension invites a careful phenomenological and hermeneutical explication. Certain philosophical approaches, on (...) the other hand - specifically, Heidegger's phenomenology and Gadamer's hermeneutics - are shown to have a hitherto unrealized potential for making sense of those themes long buried within Western medicine. Richard M. Zaner, Ann Geddes Stahlman Professor of Medical Ethics, Vanderbilt University. (shrink)

Drawing on a particular emphasis within the phenomenological tradition as exemplified by Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Eugene Gendlin, this book considers the role of the lived body as a way of knowing and being. The author, a psychologist, psychotherapist and qualitative researcher pursues this theme within three practical contexts that illustrate some of the nuances of embodied enquiry: qualitative research, psychotherapy, spirituality. The three sections of the book also provide examples of how embodied enquiry is not just a philosophical perspective but (...) also a practice with very tangible implications for research, psychotherapy and spirituality. (shrink)

What is characteristic of being aParkinson’s patient? This article intends toanswer this question by means of an analysis ofnovels about people with Parkinson’s disease,personal accounts, and scientific publications.The texts were analyzed from anexistential-phenomenological perspective, usingan adapted version of the existential analysis.Being a Parkinson’s patient is apparentlycharacterized by an existential paradox: lifeappears simultaneously immobile andunpredictably whimsical. This may manifestitself in the person’s corporeality, in hisbeing-in-time and in-space, in his relating tothings and events, his life-world, and in hisbeing-together-with-others as an individual.Finally, some (...) specific characteristics of beinga Parkinson’s patient are described that may berelevant for purposes of adequate care, as isto be specified by further research. (shrink)