This month, on FAB Gab, Karen Davis speaks about her paper in the new Spring 2023 issue of IJFAB, which is about women’s experiences of pain and how dialogue with sympathetic others can break isolation. Karen’s work stems from her own experience with chronic pain and her background in philosophical hermeneutics.

Here’s a quote from the discussion:

[Gadamer’s] idea is self mastery, that like the physicians role is just to help you to control your own self in a way that you already can. And, you know, the image of the midwife is meaningful to philosophers in many ways. But that, that felt like a certain kind of abandonment to me, that wasn’t what I needed, in sort of a recovery or healing relationship. It wasn’t that midwife guidance, it was something a little different, that it wasn’t something within me that needed to be brought out. It was actually my connections with the world that needed to be reinstated, or reinvigorated. Right, that the pain had sort of cut me off.

Karen Davis, in discussion on FAB Gab

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FAB Gab is hosted and produced by Kathryn MacKay.