ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book addresses some of the underlying conditions of the body often underdeveloped in the classical writings in phenomenology. It focuses on the dynamics that unfold between the conceptualization of abnormal versus normal, breakdown versus recovery. Phenomenology’s account of the body has been one of its major achievements. Phenomenology’s primary interest has not been the objective constitution of the body, such as its physical and biological make up, but the body as lived, as enacted and undergone, from the first-person perspective. The vulnerability of the body stems from its exposure to others. While such exposure makes relations and intersubjectivity possible, it also entails the risk of being victim to violence. The phenomenological description Christian Gruny works out calls into question the idea of a unitary lived body and reveals it as heterogeneous.
