Eduan Breedt, Erin Tichenor & Tim Barlott (2025), Diagnosing the body in physiotherapy: the passage from discipline to control. Physiotherapy Theory and Practice, 1–25.
https://doi.org/10.1080/09593985.2025.2585138
ABSTRACT
The concept of the body as a biomechanical machine was central to legitimizing physiotherapy and defining its professional identity. As society transitioned from Michel Foucault’s disciplinary formation to Gilles Deleuze’s control societies, this paper examines how physiotherapy’s concept of the body has evolved. We argue that the transition to neoliberal-affective capitalism and control societies has prompted a shift from the reductionist “body-as-machine” to the holistic “body-as-modulation.” We use social theory in conversation with physiotherapy literature, interviews, social media, clinical observations, and clinical experiences, to theorise this shift within the context of musculoskeletal physiotherapy, with implications for the profession. More specifically, we use assemblage theory to diagnose the boundaries of the body-as-modulation, its implications, and entanglement in control societies and the current political economy. We then mobilize Jasbir Puar’s reading of Deleuze to theorize the concept’s built-in assumptions about personhood, longevity, and futurity, and its participation in the modulation of life, death, and debility in the current political moment. We contend that “holistic” movements in physiotherapy, despite their progressive appearance, serve control societies and perpetuate state and corporate power. This paper calls for a critical examination of physiotherapy’s concept of the body and its role in modulating life chances in the context of Euro-American empire.
KEYWORDS:
Body, physiotherapy, Deleuze, Puar, maiming
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