ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts discussed in this book. The book argues that physiotherapists are trained as biomechanical specialists and many are sceptical of historical, philosophical and socio-cultural paradigms. It shows that power has been a highly productive force in physiotherapy and has influenced the profession's decisions about aligning with the medical profession, defining a very restrictive view of the body-as-machine, brutalising injured servicemen, tackling the rehabilitation of polio victims, and so on. The book examines the questions of power as too asymmetrical, risks oversimplifying the vast complexity of discursive networks at play. Physiotherapists did not resolve the problem of how to touch people legitimately in 1894. Nor did they form an unbreakable bond with medicine and the State in the inter-war years. In reality, physiotherapists have to renew their relationships and re-establish their core principles every day, through myriad tiny gestures and actions; constantly re-performing what it means to be a physiotherapist.
