ABSTRACT
The importance of bodies and the physical nature of encounters in health and social care seem obvious. Yet, how often do you hear about patients left in undignified positions, with only curtains to preserve their dignity, of social care staff forgetting to offer reassuring eye contact or a gentle touch, and doctors being physically threatened by patients? Embodiment and physicality are central and critical but all too often passed off as too ordinary for serious consideration. But because they permeate throughout encounters they require special attention. Experiences of pain, of soothing touch, of the senses, of movement, of beds and scratchy sheets, of heat and cold are all embodied, physical dimensions that impact upon the experience of health and social care. If their importance and meaning are lost in communicative encounters both practitioners and service users can pay high prices.
