The Image and Appearance of the Human Body

327 Pages·2013·1.93 MB·English

by  Schilder

THE IMAGE AND
APPEARANCE OF THE
HUMAN BODY
Founded by C. K. Ogden
PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY
In 10 Volumes
I Pleasure and Instinct Allen
II Pleasure and Pain Bousfield
III The Neural Basis of Thought Campion et al
IV Body and Mature Behaviour Feidenkrais
V Emotions of Normal People Marston et al
VI Integrative Psychology Marston et al
VII The Development of the Sexual Impulses Money-Kyrle
VIII The Laws of Feeling Paulhan
IX Thought and the Brain Piéron
X The Image and Appearance of the Human
Body Schilder

First published in 1950
by Routledge
Reprinted in 1999, 2000
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Transferred to digital printing 2007
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
© 1950 International Universities Press, Inc
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library
The Image and Appearance of the Human Body
ISBN 0415-21081-X
ISBN 978-1-1363-3828-1 (ePub)
Physiological Psychology: 10 Volumes
ISBN 0415-21131-X
The International Library of Psychology: 204 Volumes
ISBN 0415-19132-7
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
PART I. THE PHYSIOLOGICAL BASIS OF THE BODY-IMAGE
1. Postural and tactile impressions in relation to the body-image
2. Localization on the skin and the optic part of the body-image
3. Localization on the skin and the optic part of the body-image3.
Further remarks on the apparatus which serves localization
4. Imperception of parts of the body-image and of impairment of
somatic function (anosog-nosia)
5. Alloaesthesia, imperception, right and left; Synaesthesia in the body-
image
6. Some remarks about the relation of the body-image to the tactile-
kinaesthetic perception of movement
7. Agnosia concerning the body-image (autotopognosia); finger agnosia
8. Interrelation of body-images
9. Aprazia and agnosia in their relation to the schema of the body
10. Remarks on human action
11. The relation of apraxia to agnosia and the representations of
movement.
12. Expressive and reflectory movements.
13. The phantom.
14. Psychogenic body-image imperception and allochiria. Their relation
to organic changes
15. Muscle-tone and body-image. The persistence of tone
16. The influence of habitual posture on the postural model
17. The image of the face. Autoscopic experiments
18. How we perceive the outer surface of our body
19. The openings of the body
20. The heavy mass of the body
21. The vestibular influence on the perception of the weight of the body
22. Pain
23. Development of the body-image.
24. Two deceptions. The influence of the optic sphere on the body-
image
25. The body-image in clouded consciousness and the vestibular
influence on the postural model of the body
PARTII. THE LIBIDINOUS STRUCTURE OF THE BODY-IMAGE
1. Narcissism and the love of one's own body.
2. Erogenic zones and body-image.
3. Neurasthenia.
4. Depersonalization
5. Hypochondria.
6. Pain and Libido
7. Acase of loss of unity in the body-image
8. Hysteria
9. Some principles concerning the libidinous structure of the body-
image.
10. Conversion
11. Organic disease
12. Further remarks on expansion and destruction of the body-image
13. Libidinous development of the body-image.
14. Changing the body-image by clothing, and the psychology of
clothes.
15. Gymnastics, dance and expressive movements
PARTIII. THE SOCIOLOGY OF THE BODY-IMAGE
1. Space and the body-image
2. On curiosity and on the expression of emotions.
3. Preliminary remarks on the relation between body-images
4. Erythrophobia (Fear of blushing) as an instance of social neurosis
5. Social relations of body-images.
6. Imitation and the body-image
7. On identification
8. Beauty and body-image
9. Variability of the body-image
CONCLUSION.
APPENDIXI. Case histories of organic brain lesions
APPENDIXII. Some remarks on the anatomy and physiology of the
nervous system
BIBLIOGRAPHY
PREFACE
The problems with which this book deals have for many years attracted my
attention. Clinical observations on brain lesions which provoked difficulties
in the differentiation between left and right started my interest. These
researches came to a preliminary conclusion in a little study on the
'Körperschema' (schema of the body), published in 1923. I tried there to
study those mechanisms of the central nervous system which are of
importance for the building up of the spatial image which everybody has
about himself. It was clear to me at that time that such a study must be
based not only on physiology and neuropathology, but also on psychology.
I wrote:" It would be erroneous to suppose that phenomenology and
psycho-analysis should or could be separated from brain pathology. It
seems to me that the theory of organism could and should be incorporated
in a psychological doctrine which sees life and personality as a unit". I
therefore used the insight psycho-analysis has given to us with its psychic
mechanisms for the elucidation of problems of brain pathology. The study
of the mechanisms of the brain in perception and action helped to a deeper
understanding of psychological attitudes. I have always believed that there
is no gap between the organic and the functional. Mind and personality are
efficient entities as well as the organism. Psychic processes have common
roots with other processes going on in the organism. I found out later that
this attitude corresponds closely with the best traditions of American
psychiatry, as they appear in the work of Adolph Meyer, William A. White,
and Smith Ely Jelliffe. The same attitude is also inherent in the doctrine of
psycho-analysis. Psychology under such an aspect is necessarily
psychobiology (Adolph Meyer's term) and can also be termed
'Naturwissenschaftliche Psychologie'. It seems to me also that the basic
position of the gestalt psychologists is a similar one. For the gestalt
psychologist, the gestalt is in the outside world, and is also in the
physicochemical processes, which are correlated to the psychic processes in