The role of the lived body during the integration of the traumatic experience of the sternotomy scar: A case study

Abstract

BackgroundOpen heart surgery is a potentially traumatic experience for patients, thus posing a real risk to both the patient's physical and mental health as well as bodily integrity. All of these can greatly affect the emotional relationship to the sternotomy scar, the physical aspect of self‐representation. Sternotomy scars mark patients for life, yet our knowledge of patients' subjective experiences is unknown.MethodIn our case study, we explore the embodied experiences of a woman (42) who underwent open heart surgery with the method of interpretative phenomenological analysis combined with drawings.Results:The body and the bodily experiences play a prominent role in the formation, healing process, and symbolism of a scar. The central core of the traumatic experience of open heart surgery is the attack against the patient's sensation of bodily integrity. The interviewee experiences the surgery as abuse committed on her body, a memory that is deeply etched both in the physical memory and in the form of a scar on the skin.Conclusion:Based on our study, it seems that the corporeal dimension of posttraumatic growth may develop after the traumatic experience of heart surgery, in which bodily intimacy with oneself and Significant Others plays a major role. In this case study, the objective reality of the heart as “sick” flesh and the “broken, pierced” bone (Körper), as well as the dissociation—and then its integration—of the lived, living body experience (Leib) are outlined. Our case study was analysed in the theoretical framework of phenomenology and psychoanalysis.