ABSTRACT
A fully adequate understanding of good health requires an acknowledgement of its enabling conditions and its obtaining requires their sustenance, particularly when understood as part of overall well-being and when this is construed as flourishing. The sensorimotor body is thus the vehicle of the subject's being-to-the-world and it is in the nature of this subject-body that it recedes or disappears in this manner from the world it is disclosing. The conflict with one's body is thus the central aspect of a broader conflict with oneself, throwing into question one's relationship with others and one's environment, even one's identity and sense of self. One key element of such disruption is the loss of independence and autonomy, primarily as a result of the collapse of the intentional arc. For van den Berg, being a patient means being a 'non-participant' in the life that preceded the illness and which is stills the reality for others, a reality the ill are forced to relinquish.
