The hidden curriculum of patient education for low back pain in general practice

In this article I explore the implicit learning that occurs in and through doctor-patient educational encounters in general practice. Drawing upon a recent study of low back pain, I argue that whilst general practitioners appear to dominate the process of patient education, this process cannot be viewed simply as a repressive social control mechanism. Rather patients voluntarily choose to exert bodily self-controls in the light of patient education, due to their wider association with freedom, health and personal choice. Patient education for low back pain also offers opportunities for people to liberate their subjectivities so that social controls become redeployed or reappropriated for idiosyncratic or counter-hegemonic purposes.