Face-to-face and hands-on: assumptions and assessments in the physiotherapy clinic

Drawing on findings from physiotherapy practice, this article discusses several interrelated concerns that are highly relevant for health care research: How do professionals constitute their very object--"the body"--and what are the connections between professionals' views of the body, their approaches to it, and patient participation? By providing a comparative analysis of two first encounters in physiotherapy, where patients' musculoskeletal disorders are assessed, I show how variously physiotherapists can practice and reason. One therapist is guided by assumptions deriving from the biomedical sciences, the other by an understanding of the body as the center of experience and field of expression. I show that the status clinicians ascribe to the body has important implications for what kind of information they regard as relevant, and I argue that the diversities accounted for provide unequal possibilities for collaboration and patient participation. I sum up by calling for more comprehensive studies of clinical practice in natural settings.