Wem gehört mein Körper?
Ausgabe: 1/2008
54. Jahrgang
Zur Verwendung des (eigenen) Körpers als Objekt
The dissociation of the body from the self as a whole makes it possible to treat the body as an impersonal thing-object. As a result the patient and doctor can treat the body without questioning the deeper sense of a disorder or dysfunction. The patient, mostly the female patient, uses her own body by transfering identity conflicts and anxieties onto the body in situations of a developmental crisis (adolescence, midlife, advanced age). The manipulation transforms the body into a dissociated object which contains negative parts of the self like aggression and lack of self-confidence. These are the aspects under which the author examines the psychodynamics of self-injury, eating disorders, hypochondria and plastic surgery. He further compares such pathologic manipulation of the body with the cultural rites of »primitive people« as well as the non-pathological uses of the body by contemporary adolescents in our culture (tattoos, piercing), which also serve to stabilize their identity.
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