Embodying occupational overuse syndrome

This article explores the ways in which embodiedness has become problematic for New Zealand sufferers of occupational overuse syndrome (OOS). While successful rehabilitation could lead back to employment, this was based on the biographical continuity of a bodily hexus that ignored persistent pain. The reality of OOS involved a liminal fragility associated with social isolation, loss of identities, pain and functional disability that was incorporated into re-negotiated identities and biographies with the result that respondents became exquisitely self-absorbed, exercising constant bodily surveillance and discipline in order to manage their symptoms. </jats:p

Occupational Overuse Syndrome

In this article we examine the moral ambiguities expressed by New Zealand health professionals regarding their clients and patients who have occupational overuse syndrome (OOS). Workers with OOS were described as being hard working and dedicated, but also undisciplined in their work and personal lives. The goal of rehabilitation in such cases is a return to full work duties and to this end, health professionals represent the disciplinary and normalizing technologies of the neoliberal state which, in New Zealand, provides financial support and treatment for injured workers. According to the health professionals in this study, the disciplinary technologies exercised through rehabilitation require that clients and patients internalize key values associated with the rhetoric of healthism; primarily self-discipline, self-control, self-denial, and willpower. These underpin successful rehabilitation and ongoing management of OOS, and at the same time represent the central values of the neoliberal capitalist workplace. </jats:p