Embodiment: Clinical, Critical And Cultural Perspectives On Health And Illness: Clinical, Critical and Cultural Perspectives on Health and Illness (Health Psychology)

This book is for students of psychology, medicine, nursing and other health sciences. It lucidly illustrates why neither a simplistic mind-body dichotomy, nor the parallelism of the biopsychosocial model, sufficiently captures people's experience of being a body. Such experience is most salient when the body is in some way distressed, diseased, disordered, disabled or dismembered. Adding to the intriguing sociological and philosophical literature on embodiment, the book illustrates how such a seemingly abstract term has tremendous clinical significance to many people's experience. Drawing a parallel with recent exciting work on neural plasticity, "Embodiment" illustrates how we are now in an age of 'body plasticity'; where our body boundaries are becoming increasingly ambiguous, allowing us more 'degrees of freedom' and offering more opportunities than ever before to overcome physical limitations. The book draws on research from diverse areas, including health and clinical psychology, neuroscience, medicine, nursing, anthropology, philosophy and sociology: it is a key resource for students of these disciplines This is the first book to explore the idea of embodiment across a wide range of clinical contexts. Adopting a critical and cultural perspective, the book stresses the importance of understanding, in addition to explaining, people's often distressing experiences of their bodies. The book: Challenges both the mind-body dichotomy and the biopsychosocial model, Examines the clinical significance of people's experience of 'being a body' through a broad range of health and illness experiences, in particular when the body is distressed, diseased, disordered, disabled or dismembered, Provides insight into the physical and emotional experiences of individuals through its empathetic style.Drawing a parallel with innovative work on neural plasticity, the author illustrates how we are now in an age of body plasticity. Our body boundaries are becoming increasingly ambiguous, allowing more degrees of freedom and offering more opportunities than ever before to overcome physical limitations.From anorexia to amputation, Botox to body dysmorphic disorder, phantom limbs to acute and chronic pain, the book considers a broad range of bodily experiences.Drawing on research from diverse areas, including health and clinical psychology, neuroscience, medicine, nursing, anthropology, philosophy and sociology, this book is essential reading for students across all these disciplines. This is the first book to explore the idea of embodiment across a wide range of clinical contexts. Adopting a critical and cultural perspective, the book stresses the importance of understanding people through their lived experiences and constructions of their own body.The book:Challenges both the mind-body dichotomy and the biopsychosocial modelExamines the clinical significance of people's experience of ‘being a body'through a broad range of health and illness experiences, in particular when the body is distressed, diseased, disordered, disabled or dismemberedProvides insight into the physical and emotional experiences of individuals through its empathetic style Drawing a parallel with innovative work on neural plasticity, the author illustrates how we are now in an age of body plasticity, where our body boundaries are becoming increasingly ambiguous, allowing more degrees of freedom and offering more opportunities than ever before to overcome physical limitations.From anorexia to amputation, Botox to body dysmorphic disorder, phantom limbs to acute and chronic pain, the book considers a broad range of bodily experiences.Drawing on research from diverse areas including health and clinical psychology, neuroscience, medicine, nursing, anthropology, philosophy and sociology, this book is essential reading for students across all these disciplines. "This is the first book to explore the idea of embodiment across a wide range of clinical contexts. Adopting a critical and cultural perspective, the book stresses the importance of understanding, in addition to explaining, people's often distressing experiences of their bodies." "From anorexia to amputation, Botox to body dysmorphic disorder, phantom limbs to acute and chronic pain, the book considers a broad range of bodily experiences." "Drawing on research from diverse areas, including health and clinical psychology, neuroscience, medicine, nursing, anthropology, philosophy and sociology, this book is essential reading for students across all these disciplines."--Jacket Cover 1 Half Title 2 Title 4 Copyright 5 Dedication 6 Contents 8 Series editors’ foreword 12 Preface 14 Acknowledgements 16 Chapter 01 18 Chapter 02 42 Chapter 03 65 Chapter 04 101 Chapter 05 126 Chapter 06 155 Chapter 07 187 References 199 Index 218