Pain, disability and rehabilitation practices. A phenomenological perspective

Rehabilitation experts and disabled people are faced with the question of pain on a daily basis. This is a complex phenomenon with various different aspects: physiological, social, cultural and personal experience. In this article the author focuses on the personal experience of pain, i.e., the way in which it is experienced by the person in question and how it changes that person, his/her body and life; the author refers to cases of people who became disabled following a road accident or a neuromuscular illness, and takes a phenomenonological and philosophical standpoint.

The article is based upon ethnographical observations made in three settings: assistance departments set up by an association, a wheelchair test centre and a rehabilitation centre.

The experience of pain has been described as a rupture of a person's relationship with the outside world leading to a loss in capacity. Rehabilitation enables this link to be rebuilt by focusing on the body and thus changing the way in which the person feels his/her body.

This analysis highlights the importance of how pain is experienced and how it is taken into account in rehabilitation practices, whilst at the same time showing how rehabilitation changes this experience.