Il corpo narrante e l’identità sfumata: la cronicità dell’HIV e dell’AIDS raccontata dal movimento corporeo

Body image is one of the main dimensions involved in the individual’s identity structuring and one of the first which could be deeply modified by illness experience. In the case of a HIV/AIDS diagnosis, some people’s body image can result extremely modified by physical changes due both to the disease development and to the collateral effects caused by the antiretroviral therapies. What people live during illness experience is unavoidably reflected in a multiplicity of negative perceptions towards themselves and their existence. Illness experience affects the Self in all spheres of life, first by damaging what makes possible the individual’s visibility: the body and the body image. This article aims to identify in the international literature the scientific evidence about body image effects on identity and quality of life of people suffering from HIV/AIDS, focusing on those outcomes which both disease and the antiretroviral therapies can cause on body image. Afterwards, the opportunity to use the results of the review to deal some educational tools and strategies was explored. These tools and strategies should be oriented to let patients to reach a better body perception, able to support a path of self-image restructuring for a quality of life improvement of people living with HIV/AIDS.