Abstract
My interest in the phenomenology of illness and disability has grown out of my own experience as a person living with multiple sclerosis, an incurable, progressively disabling disease of the central nervous system. Over the past twenty-eight years (since the age of 30) my physical capacities have altered in a startling number of ways. At one time or another my illness has affected my ability to see, to feel, to move, to hear, to stand up, to sit up, to walk, to control my bowels and my bladder, and to maintain my balance. Some abilities, such as sensing the position of a limb, I have lost abruptly and then slowly regained. Some, such as clear vision in one or the other eye, I have lost and regained numerous times. Other physical capacities have disappeared and never returned. I can, for example, no longer walk because I am unable to lift my legs. This latter change has, however, been gradual. For a number of years, although the muscles in my legs gradually weakened, I was able to get around “on my own two feet” using first a cane, then crutches, and finally a walker for support. Several years ago I was forced to give up the walker and begin full-time use of a wheelchair for mobility.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Bibliography
Asch, A. and M. Fine, (eds.): 1988, Women With Disabilities, Temple University Press, Philadelphia.
Goffinan, E.: 1963, Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity, Prentice Hall, Inc., New Jersey.
Husserl, E.: 1982, Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology, D. Cairns (trans.), Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague.
Husserl, E.: 1989, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy: Studies in the Phenomenology of Constitution, Rojcewicz and A. Schuwer (trans.) Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, Holland.
Merleau-Ponty, M.: 1962, Phenomenology of Perception, C. Smith (trans.), Routledge and Kegan Paul, London.
Murphy, R.: 1987, The Body Silent, Henry Holt and Company, New York.
Robillard, A.B.: 1999, Meaning of Disability: The Lived Experience of Paralysis, Temple University Press, Philadelphia.
Sartre, J.P.: 1956, Being and Nothingness: A Phenomenological Essay on Ontology, H. Barnes (trans.), Pocket Books, New York.
Schutz, A: 1962, ‘On multiple realities’, in M. Natanson (ed.), The Problem of Social Reality, Volume I, Alfred Schutz: Collected Papers, Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague.
Toombs, S.K.: 1995, ‘Sufficient unto the day: A life with multiple sclerosis’, in S.K. Toombs, D. Barnard and R.A Carson (eds.), Chronic Illness: From Experience to Policy, Indiana University Press, Bloomington.
Toombs, S.K.: 1992, The Meaning of Illness: A Phenomenological Account of the Different Perspectives of Physician and Patient, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, Holland.
Toombs, S.K.: 1990, ‘The temporality of illness: Four levels of experience’, Theoretical Medicine 11, 227–241.
Van den Berg, J.H.: 1955, The Phenomenological Approach to Psychiatry, Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, Illinois.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2001 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Toombs, S.K. (2001). Reflections on Bodily Change: The Lived Experience of Disability. In: Toombs, S.K. (eds) Handbook of Phenomenology and Medicine. Philosophy and Medicine, vol 68. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0536-4_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0536-4_13
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-0200-7
Online ISBN: 978-94-010-0536-4
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive