Distance and Disruption: The Organized Disorder of the Body in Illness

Advancements in modern medicine and innovation in diagnosis indicate that we are all likely to experience illness, of some form or another, in our lifetime or through the lives of those we care about. Through the author's work with patients, and those their share their time with, this chapter contribution examines the development of her work through film and other media towards understanding the impact of illness as a lived encounter and the significance of “Waiting” as a profound disrupting feature of the alienated self in illness. In doing so she refers to the ongoing discourse surrounding Cartesian Dualism, and the mind, body problem explored through illness as a phenomenological consideration by Toombs and Carel, and Steven Eastwood's thought-provoking film and accompanying essay, The interval and the instant: Inscribing death and dying.