Abstract
This chapter integrates a phenomenology of the body with a first-person account of a heart attack to illuminate ways in which the meaning-structures of existence are disrupted by critical illness. Drawing primarily on the work of Martin Heidegger and focusing on the structures of spatiality, temporality, understanding and intersubjectivity, the chapter exposes the limitations of mainstream biomedicine and explores how critical illness narrows and constricts one’s “being-in-the-world” and limits one’s capacity for meaningful self-creation. The chapter concludes by examining the possibility of healing and the role that the recognition of suffering plays in recovery.