Journal of evaluation in clinical practice
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The question of how to adaptively cope with chronic illnesses, aging, and other sources of bodily impairment is crucial for patients and clinicians alike, though sometimes overlooked in the focus on biomedical treatment. ⋯ We outline a "chessboard of healing," involving the possibility-spaces for dealing constructively with bodily breakdown. This set of strategies is shown to be nonarbitrary, drawn directly from contemporary work on the phenomenology of the lived body. For example, as we both experience the body as that which 'I am', and as that which 'I have', separable from the self, patients can react to illness by moving towards their bodies in modes of listening and befriending, or away from their body, ignoring or detaching themselves from symptoms. Then too, as the body is ever changing in time, one can seek restoration to a previous state, or transformation to new patterns of bodily usage, including passage into a whole new life-narrative.
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In recent years, a new form of health has emerged, namely philosophical health. This novel concept is part of the philosophical counseling movement and relies on the philosophical method called the SMILE-PH interview, which draws heavily from continental philosophy, including phenomenology. Reflecting on the link between health and philosophy brings us to an ancient healthcare tradition that actively relies on philosophy: Chinese healthcare and its founding wuxing, or five phases ontology. ⋯ We obtained a clear perspective of the place of SMILE-PH in wuxing ontology and added a new layer to philosophical health. The other phases of wuxing ontology remain to be tested and integrated into philosophical health.