[To see the body with new eyes]

The conception of the body underlying medical theory and practice is considered and compared with the conception obtained from everyday experience and that expressed in art. Recent medical "holism" is characterized as dualism in disguise. The alternative to the biomedical model cannot be to relinquish the body, to redefine patients' problems as "psycho-social", and reduce health-work to talk, which is the latest trend in general practice. The alternative is rather to regard the body anew; to take other people's experiences of life seriously and not deprive the body of intention and meaning. This view of the body--qualitatively different from the one prevailing in medicine--is advocated as a prerequisite for a much-needed recontextualisation of consultations and thereby for a new understanding of today's health-problems.