"It's the First Time I Feel as One". Patients' Experience of Therapeutic Body Wraps in Swiss Public Adult Inpatient Psychiatric Wards.

ABSTRACT

Many patients suffering from serious mental illness experience severe anxiety, and those with psychosis often report feeling that their bodies are falling apart. Expert opinions reported relational benefits and tranquilizing effects of therapeutic body wraps (TBWs). Yet this adjunct nursing therapy has rarely been studied and the existing knowledge is limited to single clinical cases reported from clinicians' perspectives. This study reports on seven adult patients, whose independent accounts of TBWs were audio-recorded, transcribed and cross-analyzed. It sheds light on a commonly underestimated need among many severely ill psychiatric patients to have their anxiety addressed on a bodily level.