From the beginning of my PT career 1973 critically questioned the reductionistic medical and positivistic paradigms in understanding and developing physiotherapy, separating body, soul and person. Took an active part in the creative professional development of “psychiatric” and “psychosomatic” physiotherapy in Sweden in the 1970-80 – where we were starting up the section in our trade union, giving courses and implementing our thoughts of the meaning and practice of movement, body awareness, training in therapeutic relationships etc in the curricula at the PT education in Sweden. My dissertation 2000 - “Body, being and meaning in a PT perspective” was a further step into a more theoretical … [Read more...] about 30DoS 2018 Day 13 – Susanne Rosberg

I am a Senior Scientist at Toronto Rehabilitation Institute-University Health Network (a rehab hospital) and an Associate Professor in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. My training is in social science, specifically medical anthropology and sociology applied to health, illness, and health systems. You’re probably wondering how a social scientist ends up working in a rehab hospital? And why, you might ask, would I want to work in such a clinical setting? It’s a good story, one about perseverance, and a strong commitment to social justice. It started many years ago with my ethnographic doctoral study of a long-term care home, an often forgotten … [Read more...] about 30DoS 2018 Day 12 – Pia Kontos

I came to physiotherapy later in life.  My previous life was as an actor (professional, occasionally paid) and I did that for 10 years.  I did love being an actor (when I was in work), but the business can be brutal and it can be easy to lose sight of one's values, so I gave it away in 1999. I had around 2 years of doing a 'proper job' while training part time as a massage therapist.  I realised once I started to do massage, that I desired more from it than it could deliver, and began to look into training in other manual therapies.  I settled on physiotherapy after going on a two-day observational placement at Kings College Hospital in London.  This was designed to show school leavers what … [Read more...] about 30DoS 2018 Day 11 – Blaise Doran

I am interested in international practice, so who works, in what ways and where, and I joined the Critical Physiotherapy Network because there were people there that shared my fluid views of what physiotherapy can and could be. To this interest in practice I bring social science understandings of relationships, both organisational and interpersonal, and I use these to inform my understanding of physiotherapy practices. I teach professionalism as well as respiratory physiotherapy, and as I do this I am keen to appreciate what understandings the student is starting from. My teacher education was profoundly influenced by ‘active’ learning approaches and I try to continue with this style. … [Read more...] about 30DoS 2018 Day 10 – Hazel Horobin

My current research is about primary health services and specifically physiotherapy practice in a rural context. Due to recent reorganizations of the Norwegian health care, physiotherapists’ traditional practice need to be changed – if we want to keep our position in the public health care. To investigate into traditions of physiotherapy practice and how the profession is responding to changes within the healthcare system, we need theories that contextualize practice and shed light on what are the important issues and new ways of understanding the issues. At the moment I am taking part in developing one of our multi-professional master programs in health sciences to get extended focus on … [Read more...] about 30DoS 2018 Day 9 – Siri Moe

I completed my BPhty Hons at The National University of Colombia in 2000.  My interest in the arts, especially dance, inspired me to modify the LABAN Dance Program (MODERN EDUCATIONAL DANCE) and use it as a tool for motor development in children between the ages of 7-9 years which became my honours project.  Implemented in one of the poorest and most violent areas of Bogota, Colombia, one of the world’s largest mega-slums called Ciudad Bolivar, this project was able to improve not only the motor development but also improve both cognitive and social skills of the children living there.  With its success, I wanted to take the program further and implement it on a larger scale, however, after … [Read more...] about 30DoS 2018 Day 8 – Alma Viviana Silva Guerrero

  Being equally passionate about eastern and western philosophy, physiotherapy, other healthcare traditions, martial arts, and a lot more, my interests in critical physiotherapy are quite varied. They do however all converge on my interest in exploring and leading a good, happy and healthy life, and supporting others in doing so. In my personal and professional research and practice over the last few years, I have focused on how a number of philosophies and practices can contribute to this. In particular, these are the ethics of Emmanuel Levinas, Pierre Hadot’s philosophy as a way of life and its philosophical practices, Zen, Buddhism and other eastern spiritual traditions, the … [Read more...] about 30DoS 2018 Day 7 – Filip Maric