Abstract
(1) Background: Physical restraint in psychiatric settings must be determined by health care professionals for ensuring their patients’ safety. However, when a patient cannot participate in the process of deciding what occurs in their own body, can they even be considered as a personal self who lives in and experiences the lifeworld? The purpose of this study is to review the existential capability of the body from Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology to explore ways of promoting human rights in physical restraint. (2) Methods: A philosophical reflection was contemplated regarding notions of the body’s phenomenology. (3) Results: Merleau-Ponty’s body phenomenology can explain bodily phenomena as a source of the personal subject, who perceives and acts in the world, and not as a body alienated from the subject in health and illness. Patients, when they are physically restrained, cannot be the self as a subject because their body loses its subjecthood. They are entirely objectified, becoming objects of diagnosis, protection, and control, according to the treatment principles of health care professionals. (4) Conclusions: The foundation of human rights, human being’s dignity lies in the health professionals’ genuine understanding and response to the existential crisis of the patient’s body in relation to its surrounding environment.
Highlights
The purpose of this study is to critically consider the limitations of principlism to justify the use of physical restraint and to review the existential capability of the body from Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological perspective, reflecting critically psychiatric patients’ experience of physical restraint in the process
This paper has reviewed the existential capability of the body from Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological perspective, reflecting critically psychiatric patients’ experience of physical restraint, to present a new perspective on the human rights of psychiatric patients who are physically restrained
With explicit knowledge about prodromal symptoms, staff can prevent the patients’ violent behaviour by identifying the early signs of the prodrome and listening to what the patients have to say [43,44]. This present study focused on the human rights of psychiatric patients, it should not be overlooked that patients’ unexpected violent behaviour can pose a severe threat to the safety of others in clinical settings, including other patients, and health care professionals [45,46]
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Maybe it is because I was wringing my hands hard trying to get out . This is unfair (looking at the bruise) . Every time I see this bruise, I remember the shocking moment.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callMore From: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
