Knowledge in Hand. Non-Discursive Knowledge and Feeling the Patient’s Body in the Profession of a Manual Therapist

Abstract

A sense of the patient’s body as a part of the profession of manual therapists is a subject related to the concept of non-discursive knowledge. The main goal of the article is to familiarize the reader with these issues as a certain bridge that allows for an interdisciplinary link between social sciences and health sciences. Above all, this aim assumes spreading awareness of the existence of a certain component of physiotherapeutic knowledge, which – contrary to the requirements of the dominant in medical sciences objectified form of the presentation of knowledge and researches –does not easily subject to quantification and explanation in linguistic terms. Thus, along with this assumption, the most important points of references for this article include: sensitizing to barriers encountered by researches who try to study the phenomenon of feeling the patient’s body by using qualitative methods; presenting what the competence of feeling the patient’s body means; revealing how this competence is taught and acquired; and showing how it addresses the dominant scientific standards in medical sciences.