Just a Head

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 begin to refer to M.R. as 'basic nursing care' or a 'psych-consult' 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. Just a Head is a compelling story and a valuable contribution to our understanding of the