ABSTRACT
Origin myths and fables, magic and sorcery, and the miracles of healing told as articles of faith in formal religions and retold in fine art draw on the world as experienced and yet perplexing. The processes of rehabituation and revised habitus are distinct from rehabilitation, the institutional means and formal process by which some of this is learned. Losing mobility, independence and autonomy, fully or partially, strikes at the heart of cultural understandings of adulthood, and people work hard to make sense of events of loss. People objectify the body part requiring particular attention in order to manage distress and aversion, for example, in handling the stumps of flesh, they reconstruct their idea of self. Rehabituation takes far longer than the time spent as an inpatient and the transitional period set aside for rehabilitation. Differences in mobility and independence among participants were substantial, affecting their employment, personal relationships and social engagement.
