Thomas Abrams, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Queen’s University (Kingston, Ontario, Canada), where he teaches sociological theory and the sociology of health, illness, and disability. His work employs social theory and philosophy to explore the experience of disability as an institutional outcome. This process began in his dissertation work, using phenomenology to make sense of his personal experience of muscular dystrophy. This has since led to a research program in the sociology of rehabilitation. Dr. Abrams continues to use social theory and philosophy to bring an interdisciplinary, disability studies perspective to critical work on health, illness, and rehabilitation.
In a fascinating and thought-provoking piece, Thomas Abrams calls on the works of Sigmund Freud, and of modern critics and interpreters of Freud, to explore the rehabilitation clinic as a “space of desire.” What desires motivate patients and rehabilitation teams alike?