Health and Illness as Enacted Phenomena

Abstract

In this paper I explore health and illness through the lens of enactivism, which is understood and developed as a bodily-based worldly-engaged phenomenology. Various health theories – biomedical, ability-based, biopsychosocial – are introduced and scrutinized from the point of view of enactivism and phenomenology. Health is ultimately argued to consist in a central world-disclosing aspect of what is called existential feelings, experienced by way of transparency and ease in carrying out important life projects. Health, in such a phenomenologically enacted understanding, is an important and in many cases necessary part of leading a good life. Illness, on the other hand, by such a phenomenological view, consist in finding oneself at mercy of unhomelike existential feelings, such as bodily pains, nausea, extreme unmotivated tiredness, depression, chronic anxiety and delusion, which make it harder and, in some cases, impossible to flourish. In illness suffering the lived body hurts, resists, or, in other ways, alienates the activities of the ill person.

Enactive and simondonian reflections on mental disorders

“…They are processes that an individual enacts in his/her functioning. Accordingly, mental disorders are not only suffered, but they are enacted ( Svenaeus, 2022 ). This perspective also allows us to focus on change rather than on stability, that is to stress the role of phase transitions between stages, relapses, recoveries and moments of different intensity.…”

Pain Philosophy: Recent Debates and Future Challenges

“…First, the phenomenological changes in a person living with pain is not exhaustively characterized in reference to sensory qualities and unpleasantness. In particular, chronic pain, similar to other chronic illnesses, can bring about complex and dynamic changes in experience (Carel, 2016;Svenaeus, 2015Svenaeus, , 2021Williams & Carel, 2018). Chronic pain may profoundly and persistently transform the way in which people experience themselves, their body, and the interactive relation to their physical and social environment (Coninx & Stilwell, 2021;Stilwell & Harman, 2019).…”

“…We are in the early stages of a systematic debate on what it exactly means to suffer from chronic pain. Broadly, the field could be structured around several central inquiries: whether we comprehend pain‐related suffering experientially or not (Brady, 2022; Corns, 2021), how we define the conditions under which it occurs (Cassell, 2004; Stilwell et al., 2022; Svenaeus, 2021; Tate & Pearlman, 2019), and which mental states we associate pain‐related suffering with. Regarding the latter question, we may already draw upon an increasingly intricate array of theories.…”

Enactive interventions can enhance agency, health, and social relationships during childhood

“…In line with this, the enactive approach acknowledges that individuals play an active role in their own health rather than being merely passive entities. Increasing evidence indicates that health processes are traversed by personal histories, motivations, concerns, perception-action patterns and active engagement with the environment (e.g., Kirmayer and Gómez-Carrillo, 2019 ; Arandia and Di Paolo, 2021 ; Svenaeus, 2022 ). As these authors suggest, disruptions in health can be related to limitations in our capacity to be active agents.…”

“…The second-person perspective is given by someone who has undergone a similar situation and can comprehend and interpret the first-person experience. Integrating these three perspectives can help transcend reductionist viewpoints that purport the dualistic notion of internal subjective experience vs. external objectivity (Depraz et al, 2003 ; Svenaeus, 2022 ). In the studies described below, we highlight the value of considering these three approaches in order to grasp the complexity of the processes taking place as children participated in enactive interventions aimed at diminishing chronic stress and enhancing social integration.…”