Walking in blood, running for life: The visceral dialectics of body handling

This study aimed to explore the visceral and embodied experiences of body handlers, examining how the physical body registers, processes, and resists traumatic exposure. Utilizing Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, a secondary analysis was conducted on narratives from twenty Jewish male IDF reservists tasked with identifying and processing human remains following the October 7th attack. Drawing on Foucault’s metaphor of the mirror, the findings reveal a dialectical struggle between two somatic states: a “utopian” identification, where the self is pulled into the “there” of death through sensory contamination and the dissolution of boundaries, and a “heterotopic” resistance that asserts the “here” of life through mechanization, metabolic drives, and kinetic exertion. The results suggest that the body functions as a visceral archive of the event, mounting an existential assertion of vitality when cognitive defenses are overwhelmed. These findings underscore the necessity of somatic therapeutic interventions for individuals exposed to extreme corporeal horror.