Image, Body, Identity
All the perceptions and feelings that are coming from our body, even beyond our full awareness, contribute to forming the ideas we have about ourselves, our beliefs, our projects.
Ever since we were kids, and we picked up and cradled, washed, fed, we are constantly influenced by the attitudes that others have toward our bodies and which determine, together with the aesthetic standards and ideals of perfection imposed by society, the values positive or negative through which characterize and define your body.
Our body "takes into account" all the experiences we have and, for this reason, bodily experience is the key element in the construction of our personal identity. The identity of the body is what makes us unique and unrepeatable as individuals, and what allows other " at first sight" not to confuse with anyone else.
In many disorders there may be a more or less severe impairment of one of the three components of body image that they build together a Plastic Integrative Scheme:
- the first component can be defined Cognitive and Affective, and refers to all of the thoughts and feelings that we have towards the body;
- another component is Perceptual, that is the set of sensory experiences ( self-perception and intro-perception ) that define the degree of accuracy with which we can define the body as a whole or in parts of it.
- The last component but not in order of importance, is commonly defined Behaviour, which consists of all those activities and "actions" that can make or avoid, depending on how we feel and perceive the body.
Last Updated on Monday, 07 October 2013 15:11
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Eating disorders
"I want my body to become so thiny and I want to learn to do without food."
"I cannot stand those two extra pounds , they make me feel like a failure."
"I know that if I gain weight I would not be the same and the others do not recognize me as being more special."
"I cannot listen to hunger because I would lose control over my life."
Body dysmorphic disorder is also known as BDD
"Even if no one believes me, this little scar on his nose makes me feel like a monster."
"It's useless to lose weight until you get to a size 2 if I'm having this huge belly."
"Every morning I look in the mirror and think I could not recognize me ..."
Somatic concerns, hypochondria, somatization and conversion disorders
" How is it possible that I have lost the feeling of a body part and that all doctors tell me that I do not have anything?"
" ... In those moments I feel my throat so closed that I cannot swallow anything, not even a glass of water "
" since few months I have severe pain in the back , they found no cause, but I'm sure you have some disease, maybe I should continue to control myself and do other analysis ... it's like having an obsession "
Dissociative disorders
"My friend talked for half an hour and I can not remember anything ? It was as if I had not heard ... "
"The other night I found myself in a street without knowing why and how we had arrived "
"My mother spoke to me and I realized that I looked at myself from above, as if I was outside of my body "
Sexual disorders
"I do not understand how it is possible , but when I make love with my partner I happen to not feel anything ...! "
"How come I cannot ' work ' with the women whom I am in love with? "
"I do not have any sexual stimulus , it is really terrible "
“Risky” use of the body
"I can come back to my senses only when I feel the pain that I procured in my body and I see the blood coming out from the cuts ... "
"All my friends tell me that if I continue to drive in this way, sooner or later I will risk my life ... but I only seem exaggerated! "
"it doesen’t matter to me what substance is that ... i just want make me bust ... and away from it all "