Transformational healing: the phenomenology of fulfilment in the face of adversity.

In the last two decades, there has been an explosion of scholarship in the phenomenology of health and illness of great practical significance for clinicians and the allied health professions. 'Healing' has been distinguished from medical 'cure' insofar as it involves a process of existential re-integration even in the face of ongoing illness and incapacity. This article goes further than much existing literature in the field: it examines ways in which illness can trigger for some ' healing'-that is, not simply a return to previous functioning, but positive alterations that open one's life to enhanced fulfilment, authenticity and/or connection.