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

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.