Body consciousness of people with intestinal stomach: A phenomenological study.

OBJECTIVE: to describe the bodily awareness of people with stomies.

METHOD: a descriptive study with a qualitative approach, carried out in the Ostomized Association of the State of Ceará, through semi-structured interviews with ten people with intestinal stomies, according to Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological thinking.

RESULTS: two categories of analysis emerged: The body that I have, in which the sensations of deficiency, imperfection and bad odor add to the feeling of strangeness towards one's own body, affecting the way of being in the world of each deponent; and The body that others perceive, in which the stoma is seen as an embarrassing and complex experience, since it hampers daily activities and conviviality with other people.

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS: The corporeal consciousness of Being-Stomp-in-the-world requires the movement to reconstruct the senses of the body from the body I have and from that which others perceive.