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Book
Author Fassett, Denise.

Title Just a head : stories in a body / Denise Fassett, M.R. Gallagher
Published St Leonards, N.S.W. : Allen & Unwin, 1998

Copies

Location Call no. Vol. Availability
 W'BOOL  362.1092 Fas/Jah  AVAILABLE
 W'PONDS  362.1092 Fas/Jah  AVAILABLE
Description xviii, 148 pages ; 22 cm
Contents Introduction / M. R. Gallagher -- 1. Last day on legs -- 2. Writing the body -- 3. Reading the body -- 4. The body as text -- 5. Being 'basic nursing care' -- 6. Being unable to eat -- 7. Being 'just a head' -- 8. Lungs or legs -- 9. Being 'a psych consult' -- 10. Re-investing in science -- 11. Home at last -- 12. Being an institutionalised body -- Reflections / Denise Fassett
Summary This is the story of a young woman, M.R., who collapsed with sudden and total paralysis six years ago. She has struggled for many years without a diagnosis or cure. She was a scientist, steeped in the positivist tradition, with total faith in the system which guided her education, but which ultimately let her down. Denise Fassett is a nurse academic who was with M.R. when she collapsed. She traces M.R.'s story, revealing how people may come to understand their bodies when they are ill. As M.R. struggles with her quadriplegia, she experiences being alienated from her body and eventually refers to herself in Cartesian fashion as 'just a head'. The nurses respond to M.R. in different ways as she moves from institution to institution searching for a cure. Denise Fassett exposes how reductive language can shape illness experiences and reveals the consequences of being a medicalised body. M.R.'s moving story challenges health professionals to reconsider illness and how the body is approached theoretically in medicine and nursing
Notes Includes index
Bibliography Bibliography: pages 139-145
Subject Gallagher, M. R., 1965-
Asthmatics -- Australia -- Tasmania.
Chronically ill -- Australia -- Tasmania.
Medical personnel and patient -- Australia -- Case studies.
Nurse and patient -- Australia -- Tasmania.
Nurse and patient -- Australia -- Victoria.
Paralytics -- Australia -- Tasmania.
Patients -- Australia -- Biography.
Physician and patien -- Victoria
Physician and patient -- Australia -- Tasmania.
Quadriplegics -- Australia -- Tasmania.
Sick -- Psychology.
Genre/Form Biographies.
Author Gallagher, M. R., 1965-
LC no. 00273637
ISBN 1864485655