Re-thinking patient motivation in clinical rehabilitation encounters: insights from different theoretical perspectives

We use analytic pluralism to analyze a data excerpt from the medical rehabilitation of an inpatient with spinal cord injury and his physical therapist to examine how the concept of motivation is used in clinical practice. We employ three theoretical perspectives to explore ways of understanding this concept: social determination theory, phenomenology, and narrative inquiry. We present and argue for multiple ontologies as a new forward to understanding complex human phenomena such as motivation.