Discipline, desire, and transgression in physiotherapy practice

Abstract

Therapeutic touch has played an important part in human civilization and continues to contribute to our social relations and individual identities. Therapeutic touch has been a vital component in the development and definition of physiotherapy practice and continues to be one of the profession's principal distinguishing competencies. It is surprising then that while so much has been written about how to perform therapeutic touch techniques, little has been written about the role that these techniques have played in defining physiotherapy's professional identity. Drawing on the work of three postmodern philosophers, we offer a critique of physio-therapeutic approaches to therapeutic touch, examining why certain modes of touch were adopted by the profession in the past and not others; how the innate sensuality of touch had to be managed; and how the disciplinary technologies that surrounded the practice of massage came to define physiotherapy's professional identity. Our thesis is that the disciplinary technologies adopted by the profession in the 1890s endure today and that the profession's heavily disciplined approach to touch is now constraining new therapeutic possibilities that may be necessary if the profession is to respond to the demands of twenty-first century health care.