Body Imagery Research Articles

From physiology to feminism. Reconfiguring body, gender and expertise in natural fertility control.

Natural Fertility Control (NFC) has existed on the margins of mainstream contraceptive practice for three decades. In the wake of recent developments in New Reproductive Technology, NFC is being reconfigured and reassessed. It is now poised to enter mainstream contraceptive markets. As configured up until the late 1980s, NFC highlighted `new facts' about the fertile female body. These `facts' in turn provided `natural resources' for the reconfiguration of conventional gender stereotypes in and outside the realm of biology. Post-1980s medicalized technologies of ovulation prediction provide a means of popularizing NFC, but also lend themselves to the erasure of these `natural resources' and with them, lay-diagnostic skills. Through these erasures, new NFC techniques are active in the reappointment of `traditional' fertile female body imagery, both within the biological sciences and within gender and sexual relations.

Bwiti in Reflection: On the Fugue of Gender

In a series of essays culminating in a powerful ethnography of the religion of Bwiti among the Fang of Gabon, James Fernandez has advancd a model of ritual, its sequencing and its tropes (1974; 1977; 1982; 1984; 1986). I want to take up his argument by seeing how it applies to movement and the unfolding of body imagery in the all-night vigil of Bwiti and, particularly, in its ascetic ordeal. The all-night vigil follows three movements or sequences of distinct scenes. Each such scene, itself a segment or course of events, is culturally framed and labelled by reference to space and movement to and from or within the forest and the chapel. The scenes are a) meeting places of origin or birth (njimba), b) trails (minkin), c) paths (zen), and d) pools (yombo). Each of these scenes is repeated, but in counter-versions. The sequence of scenes is recursive. Repetition in the action qualifies its progression, and reciprocally, the progression qualifies the repetition. The repetition occurs, on the one hand, within a movement during repeated returns to an earlier scene, usually in three such returns, and, on the other hand, between movements by a mode of mirroring. Mirroring is the replaying of a movement in reverse; that is, from scene c, to scene b, to scene a against the earlier order of scenes a, b, c. Like the repetition, the progression is within and between movements, and it unfolds dialectically

Beyond Minimalism: Beckett's Late Style in the Theater

Beckett's later dramatic works defy generic classification as pure theatre, poetry, or prose. Instead, Brater argues, they forge a new aesthetic for themselves. Analysing Beckett's use of disjointed body imagery; mask; abstract monologue; and the experimentation in film and video in the 1980s, Brater demonstrates Beckett's truly avant-garde departure from our concepts of the 'theatrical'.

Is Brain Research Relevant for Music Education?

During the past several years Dr Harvey has presented seminars on ‘Music and the Brain’ throughout the United States and Canada. In the course of a weekend seminar in 1985 he was, once again, particularly impressed with the power of music to affect individuals in many different ways; musical performances (live and taped) evoked responses as diverse as excitement, tears, loneliness, increases in pulse rate, changes in breathing rate, spontaneous body movement, memory recall and imagery experiences. To understand just how the brain produces both biophysical and psychological responses to music requires a basic understanding of the human brain, the areas of the human personality affected through brain processes, and an awareness of the interactions of musical elements affecting us. In this article Dr Harvey outlines some of the directions of recent research.

Effects of Intervention on Teenagers' Physical and Psychological Identity

A study of therapeutic intervention using body experience and imagery showed that 19 high school students receiving such treatment for 1 mo. changed in the expected direction in terms of self-actualization on immediate retest.

Body Imagery in the Tamil Proverbs of South India

Body Imagery in the Tamil Proverbs of South India

A Concept Development Program for Future Mobility Training

A concept development program to prepare first and second grade blind children for future mobility training was established at the Illinois Braille and Sight Saving School in Jacksonville, Illinois. The initial concept work included working in a group setting to improve the body imagery, spatial concepts, and organizational ability of the six students in the class. Two orientation and mobility specialists then worked with the students on an individual basis to teach them routes of travel on the campus. Guidelines followed, material used, and observations from operating such a program for three years are presented.

Psychoanalytic Approaches to Artistic Creativity

Study of data and findings from clinical and applied psychoanalysis suggests a number of common factors encountered with uncommon frequency and intensity in creativity. In this paper, early childhood experiences, sensorial perceptions, body feelings, loneliness, reactions to loss, and body imagery of several artists are discussed. Problems relating to body image in creativeness are explored.

Sex therapy and mastectomy.

Because the emotional trauma associated with a mastectomy exceeds the physical trauma, the recovery of the woman is greatly affected by the response of her husband or lover. Sex therapy, therefore, involves the couple. The approach described here is aimed at assisting the couple to confront and intergrate the mastectomy experience. The use of a prosthesis is discouraged during intercourse because it delays such confrontation; certain sex therapy exercises (body imagery and sensate focus) are usually recommended because they facilitate confrontation and acceptance. These, modified for the circumstances, are described. It is suggested that intercourse be attempted as early as possible, and that if physical weakness or psychological trepidation intervenes, the physical desire and caring of the husband be expressed nonetheless. The "professional" attitudes that psychotherapy is always indicated for mastectomy patients and that the proper role of the husband is matter-of-fact denial are rejected; emphasis is placed on the beneficial consequences of sharing of all emotions.

BODY INVOLVEMENT AMONG SCHIZOPHRENICS, NORMALS AND PARAPLEGICS

This study investigated the extent of body involvement in 25 schizophrenic, 25 paraplegic, and 25 normal subjects by means of the Secord Homonym Test (SHT). The results indicated that, although paraplegics are indeed more body involved, schizophrenics are not. These findings cast doubt upon the assumed isomorphism between ego and body boundary and upon the assumption of disturbed body imagery in schizophrenics.

Body imagery in perceptual learning.

In addition to the general aspects of body imagery, the perceptual system includes (in vision) external projection pathways as an extension of the body schema. The perceptual learning which occurs with movement is concerned primarily with differentiation of the body schema, and is different from that occurring in visually guided motor activity.

Coping With a Chronic Disability

The adjustment to wearing a Milwaukee brace for scoliosis was studied in 26 girls and their mothers. Sixteen girls were able to adjust well after an initially difficult period, seven had behavioral symptoms which interfered with their adaptation, and two refused to wear the brace. The frequency of problems is probably due to 6 of 25 girls being referred because of management difficulty. Factors contributing positively to coping included intellectual understanding of scoliosis and bracing, optimistic view of outcome, active decision to wear brace, and support of family and medical staff. Negative factors included poor intellectual understanding, denial of deformity, conflicts between mother and daughter, family problems, and long duration for the brace. There were no significant associations between the girls' adjustment to the Milwaukee brace and indications of distorted body imagery on projective testing.

Elucidation of body imagery in chronic schizophrenia.

SARTRE'S Saint Genet contains a chapter entitled, I Is Another. In it, Sartre says of Genet: 1 He bewitches himself in the Other and flees his own consciousness of self. In this first moment consciousness flees itself and throws itself upon the Other; it tries to be external to itself. It is pure consciousness of the Other. In an attempt to see if this is what happens to the self of schizophrenics, the present study was undertaken. The idea that one's identity is predicated upon a fusion of self-images is common to many writers. 2-4 Thus, it was conceived that the elucidation of a single visual image of the self could shed light on an identity forerunner. The maintenance of self-images depends on a constant comparison of one's own body with the bodies of others, according to Greenacre. 4 The first thesis tendered in

Body Imagery in Picasso's “Night Fishing at Antibes”

For the critic or historian interested in correlating the imagery of modern art with modern experience, I know of no more valuable resource than Paul Schilder's The Image and Appearance of the Human Body. (New York, 1951). A remarkable thesaurus of the phenomenology of the human body, Schilder's book will be of special value to students of modern figure style, and, insofar as the body is a central ground for symbolic activities affecting a vast range of things and events, Schilder's insights into the body as a creative force and field of power can also help us to understand a great many expressive phenomena usually attributed solely to the predominance of “formal logic” or “inexplicable fantasy” over representational accuracy in the formal and iconographic modes of modern art. Since my concern in this essay is to speak to an issue involving the logic of figure types in a specific work, Picasso's Night Fishing At Antibes, my emphasis will be upon the aspect of the book which deals with the body as perceive...

Body Imagery in Picasso's "Night Fishing at Antibes"

Body Imagery in Picasso's "Night Fishing at Antibes"

SEX DIFFERENCES IN BODY IMAGERY AND ORIENTATION UNDER SENSORY DEPRIVATION OF BRIEF DURATION.

Among 14 male Ss and 14 female Ss undergoing 20 min. sensory deprivation sessions, no sex differences were found in numbers reporting movement or disturbances of orientation or body-image.

Orientational perception. A review and preliminary study of distortion in orientational perception.

<h3>Introduction</h3> Observations from a variety of sources, such as gas inhalation therapy,¹⁹investigations of childhood autism and of adult schizophrenias,^15,18of body imagery,¹⁷the literature of psychotomimetic drugs, and every day experience with the psychiatric patient, seemed to have converged and impressed on us the importance of changes in orientational perception. Once the ear was attuned to the possibilities of subtle subjective distortions in these percepts, it seemed that every psychiatric patient encountered by one of us (D.C.) made a direct or oblique reference to experiencing them. The following are condensed excerpts from a consecutive series of 14 ambulatory patients with minor psychiatric illness, all of whom made spontaneous references to such distortions: No. 1: Often, when lying on a couch, a feeling of "floating, weightlessness, spinning, sinking or expanding into space; the objects around moving fast." No. 2: On waking, a feeling