Dementia and the inter-embodied self

In the twenty-first century, new forms of community in dementia are emerging. The existence of these communities challenges the individualisation of the self, which has come to characterise 'person-centred' approaches to dementia care over the past 30 years. In this article, an alternative approach (the inter-embodied self) is presented. This approach to promoting selfhood in dementia is based on the premise that the self is not an intrinsic aspect of embodied Being but is instead a transactive phenomenon, which exists in a perpetual state of becoming. As such, the primary goal of practitioners should not be the fixing, reviving or re-unifying of a pre-morbid self but, instead, enabling a rich and polyphonic montage of selves to emerge. Drawing on a short documentary film about experiences of friendship in dementia, the article concludes by highlighting the potential contribution of the inter-embodied self to contemporary dementia care.