This post is part of a new project for the Critical Physiotherapy Network. If you want to know more about the project, track back to this post.Connectivity, as I see it, is about the way people use mediating technologies to engage meaningfully in the world. Connectivity is about real life, real people's abilities, real problems - the very things that physiotherapists face every day. In some ways, it's nothing new to physiotherapy, but it carries with it the possibility of a radical revision of our purpose and function as a profession. Here are some thoughts on how connectivity might enhance and/or challenge our practice. Physiotherapy has always followed a reductive biomedical model … [Read more...] about Connectivity #3 – Connectivity and physiotherapy
Connectivity #2 – Connectivity explained
This post is part of a new project for the Critical Physiotherapy Network. If you want to know more about the project, track back to this postFirst off, a qualifier...connectivity is a complex subject. It would be very hard to sum it up in a few hundred words. My task here is to outline how I understand it in a way that brings other people in to the discussion. Apologies if this explanation misses the mark for you...by all means feel free to offer up your own interpretations in the comments box below. Having argued in the last post that the two prevailing models of disability (the medical and social) rely on the idea that the disabled person is 'other,' connectivity is striking … [Read more...] about Connectivity #2 – Connectivity explained
Connectivity #1 – Critique of the medical and social models of disability
This post is part of a new project for the Critical Physiotherapy Network. If you want to know more about the project, track back to this post.One of the best ways I know to understand connectivity is as a powerful critique of both the medical and social models of disability. The medical model of disability is based on the premise that you are disabled if you have an impairment. You are disabled, for example, if you are blind, have lost sensation down the left side of your body, or have chronic lung disease. By contrast, the social model of disability works from the assumption that it is not impairments that are inherently disabling, but social environments that present barriers to … [Read more...] about Connectivity #1 – Critique of the medical and social models of disability
Interview with Clare Kell
As part of our 'interview' series with people in the Critical Physiotherapy Network, I asked Clare Kell some questions about her approach to physiotherapy, research and life in general. Clare was the author of a paper titled 'Making practice education visible: Challenging assumptions about the patient's place in placement environments' (International Journal of Therapy and Rehabilitation, 21(8), 359-366). Clare is a Senior Lecturer and Programme Lead at Cardiff University in Wales (KellC@cardiff.ac.uk). You can find Clare's CPN member profile here Where does your interest in health care education - and particularly patient-centred care in physiotherapy - come from? This is a hard … [Read more...] about Interview with Clare Kell
Connectivities…an experiment in collaborative thinking and writing
Connectivities - a call for your ideas Connecting over connectivities Over the next few days, I want to try a short experiment to test out our nascent Critical Physiotherapy Network and see just how powerful this social networking business really could be. Our 30 Days of September project showed that the most popular task for our group was going to be 'Explaining philosophy to physios.' Well, with that in mind - and always thinking that philosophy should be practically useful to people in their everyday lives - I've got a project that I want to kick off, and see whether we can do something radical in physiotherapy. The project is to bring together people across the Network to … [Read more...] about Connectivities…an experiment in collaborative thinking and writing
Qualitative Inquiry and the Debate Between Hermeneutics and Critical Theory
New article A new article has just been published in Qualitative Health Research by two authors from University of Toronto that people within the Critical Physiotherapy Network might know well. James Shaw and Ryan DeForge contributed to an edited collection on Philosophy and Physiotherapy that Barbara Gibson and I co-edited in August 2012 (full version available at the bottom of this post). Jay and Ryan's new paper is titled 'Qualitative Inquiry and the Debate Between Hermeneutics and Critical Theory' and the abstract follows and you can link to the full details of the paper here: Abstract Two issues have been central to ongoing disputes about judgments of quality in qualitative inquiry: … [Read more...] about Qualitative Inquiry and the Debate Between Hermeneutics and Critical Theory
History of spinal manipulation in New Zealand
The mysterious manipulator performing unpleasant-looking cervical traction in the picture I posted on the blog a few days ago was Jennifer Hickling, one of James Cyriax's physiotherapists, who traveled from England to New Zealand in 1954 and sparked the interest of a young Stan Paris, who subsequently set off in the early 1960s to work with Grieve, Stoddard and Kaltenborn in Europe before returning to New Zealand and being part of a renaissance in manipulative physiotherapy that has lasted nearly 50 years. New Zealand physiotherapists are rightly proud of their pioneers of spinal mobilisation and manipulation: Stan Paris, Rob McKenzie, Brian Mulligan, Michael Monaghan, Mark Laslett, and … [Read more...] about History of spinal manipulation in New Zealand
