It is with great pleasure that we read the qualitative study by Vázquez-Fariñas and Rodríguez-Martin [1], describing an extensive, interview-based qualitative study into patients’ perceptions on bodily changes after Spinal Cord Injury (SCI). The authors include a heterogenous cohort of Spanish SCI patients from different gender groups, ages and levels of injury and group their findings on patient perceptions of bodily changes after SCI into two main categories: changes in body schema and an increase in bodily awareness. The authors conclude that ‘when healthcare professionals are aware of the changes affecting the body after a spinal cord injury, they display more favorable attitudes and are more involved in promoting the patients’ adaptation to their new body schema’. We agree with the author’s conclusions and would like to emphasize the importance of this type of work for the field of rehabilitation medicine in general. In previous work centering around embodiment of neural implants for motor recovery after SCI [2], we used similar terminology such as body schema and body image as reported by Vázquez-Fariñas and Rodríguez-Martin [1]. In this response, we would like to strengthen the authors’ main argument by placing their used terminology into the context of phenomenology of the body, a philosophical approach to issues of embodiment based on the ideas of Maurice Merleau-Ponty [3].

Phenomenology enables us to clarify the different ways in which one’s body can be experienced [4]. Criticizing the dualistic and Cartesian inspired body-mind dualism, phenomenology explains that next to the experience of being a thing or object, one’s body can also be experienced as a subject. This body-subject or “lived body” constitutes the zero point for any perception, orientation and action in the world [3]. Most of the time, we experience our “lived body” only in a pre-reflective way. Indeed, in most cases, the lived body is “transparent”. However, in situations such as pain, fatigue, disease, illness or injury, the body starts demanding conscious attention, as it becomes inadequate to perform certain tasks. As such, the body becomes more opaque [5].

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