A philosophically and medically informed response to the physical vulnerabilities of our existence

As we grapple with the impacts of an aging population, the millions who struggle with chronic pain and illness, and the unknown number of COVID survivors dealing with long-term impairment, our individual and collective trust in our bodies is shaken. How to adapt? And how to live well, even when medical cure is unavailable? In The Healing Body: Creative Responses to Illness, Aging, and Affliction, philosopher and medical doctor Drew Leder shows how the phenomenology of lived embodiment makes available a variety of existential healing responses to bodily breakdown. Leder also turns to socially marginalized groups—people who have been incarcerated and those deemed “elderly”—to explore how individuals creatively cope with societal as well as physical challenges.

This book forwards current phenomenological research on the body, pain and suffering, disability, and aging. It deeply engages with the legacies of continental philosophy while also drawing insights from the traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism. The Healing Body is a uniquely creative and refreshingly innovative contribution to contemporary philosophy, demonstrating the importance of the philosophical method to the wider culture.
 

DREW LEDER is a doctor of medicine and a professor of philosophy at Loyola University Maryland. His many books include The Absent Body and The Distressed Body: Rethinking Illness, Imprisonment, and Healing.

“The Healing Body displays Drew Leder at the height of his powers: both erudite and attuned to the everyday, both expansive in scope and precise in practical insight. A powerful, necessary read for anyone interested in the relationship between embodiment and the good life.” —Joel Michael Reynolds, author of The Life Worth Living: Disability, Pain, and Morality  

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“Drawing on traditional and nontraditional sources in philosophy and medicine, Drew Leder addresses structural injustices based on race, class, gender, and carceral status that so often impede the healing process. To mend the body, he maintains, we must also repair the sociopolitical worlds in which we dwell.” —Gail Weiss, author of Body Images: Embodiment as Intercorporeality— -