Demanding treatment processes in Norwegian psychomotor physiotherapy: From the physiotherapists’ perspectives

ABSTRACT

Long-lasting musculoskeletal pain may be understood as the embodiment of bio-psycho-social strain. A combined theoretical perspective of biomedicine, physiotherapy and phenomenology may make these painproblems more comprehensible for the therapist. Norwegian psychomotor physiotherapy is one treatment approach applied on patients with long-lasting musculoskeletal pain. The approach is process-oriented, and can be long-term, complex and demanding. To explore this issue, we employed a multi-stage focus-group phenomenological methodology including five experienced physiotherapists. We found that during these demanding situations, the physiotherapists described their experiences including the feeling of being stuck, and further, how the experience of being in touch with their own body opened possibilities to bear, and act in the demanding situations. The physiotherapists had to find a balance between being in touch with themselves and concurrently listen to and be in contact with their patients.

KEYWORDS:

• Agency
• intersubjectivity
• Giorgi
• lived experience
• Merleau-Ponty
• Self-ownership

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the NPMP physiotherapists for taking part in the study. The study was financially supported from the Norwegian Fund for Post-Graduate Training in Physiotherapy.

Declaration of interest

The authors declare no potential conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

The study was financially supported from the Norwegian Fund for Post-Graduate Training in Physiotherapy.