BODY MEMORY AND ILLNESS: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH

Abstract

Considering the need for a broader understanding of illness that goes beyond its aspects that can be captured from a biological and material point of view, this work aims to contribute to a philosophical discussion that contemplates the existential dimension of the lived experience of those suffering from some illness, especially in chronic and debilitating cases. In this sense, the objective here is to develop a phenomenological approach to illness, based on the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, and following the concepts of lived body, body memory, and bodily doubt as guiding threads. To this end, a bibliographic review of works related to the phenomenological analysis of illness is used. Firstly, the text presents Heidegger's understanding of human existence and corporeality, through the analysis of his concept of the lived body (Leib). Next, it addresses the notion of body memory developed by Thomas Fuchs and Edward Casey, understood as the totality of dispositions, practices, and skills that develop and establish themselves in someone's maturation through the lived body, implicitly conditioning existence. Based on this philosophical foundation, a phenomenological interpretation of illness is presented, drawing on researchers such as S. Kay Toombs, Fredrik Svenaeus, Roberto Nogueira, Robson Reis, and Havi Carel. The hypothesis developed from these authors is that illness is not reduced to a physiological dysfunction, but involves a radical rupture in the sick person's way of being-in-the-world, which has at its core a bodily doubt – that is, a disturbance of bodily memory that conditions daily access to the world.