THE DYNAMIC BODY IMAGE AND THE MOVING BODY:

A THEORETICAL AND EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION

Francine Hanley, BA (Hons.) Psych.

Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

School of Psychology, Faculty of Arts

Victoria University
August, 2004
 DECLARATION

I certify that this thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of
any higher degree or graduate diploma in any university, and that to the best of my
knowledge and belief the thesis contains no copy or paraphrase of material previously
published or written by another person, except where the reference is made in the text
of the thesis.

Francine Hanley
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to acknowledge the support and encouragement of my supervisors. Firstly, to Dr.

Suzanne Dean and Ms. Anne Graham whose professionalism, knowledge and
encouragement guided my often-weary effort to persevere the duration of this thesis.
Secondly, I wish to thank Dr. Susan Moore, whose initial support and encouragement as
my principal supervisor enabled me to build a research project from what, at first, was
little more than a vague idea. Thirdly, I wish to thank Dr. Helen Malson whose co-
supervision gave me much needed insight into the context in which this work is located.

Thank you to my participants. Your generosity has enabled me to build an idea.

Special thanks go to my professional and student colleagues. Thank you to Dr. Marian
Pitts for the quiet encouragement and to Jo Grimwade for keeping me in mind and
offering to read an earlier draft. Thank you to my proofreaders Deb, Peter and Carmelo
your time and effort are greatly appreciated. Thanks heaps to my student comrades, for
the three-hour lunches and all that they implied. Thank you to my family, most especially
to Josie my mother now deceased, who purchased the PC and other trappings I
required to set to work on a doctoral degree. And finally, a big thank-you to my husband
Carmelo for enduring the madness for over seven years.
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Declaration i

Acknowledgements ii

Table of contents iii

List of appendices ix

List of tables ix

List of figures ix

Abstract x

CHAPTER ONE
The body image understood and misunderstood 1

1.1 The origin of the body image concept 3

1.1.1 Schilder’s opening remarks concerning the body image concept 4
1.1.2 Schilder’s tri-dimensional concept 5
1.1.3 The dynamic and emergent body image in Schilder’s work 6

1.2 Body image in neuroscience 8

1.2.1 Schilder’s neuroscientific contribution in context 9
1.2.2 Differentiating body image from body schema 11
1.2.2.1 Body schema: A functional capacity 11
1.2.2.2 The relationship between body schema and body image 13
1.2.3 The body image and phantom phenomena 14
1.2.4 Dynamic aspects of phantom experience 16

1.3 Psychoanalytic perspectives on the body image 17

1.3.1 The bodily ego 18
1.3.2 Freud’s contribution to body image ideas 18
1.3.3 The body, the signifier and the image of the body 19
1.3.4 The mirror-role of mother 20
1.3.5 Psychoanalytic researches on the body image 21
1.3.6 Schilder’s contribution to psychoanalytic ideas concerning the
body image 22

1.4 Psychoanalysis and neuroscience in conversation 25

1.4.1 Where neuroscience and the question of mind converge 25
1.4.2 A neuro-psychoanalytic understanding of the unconscious 27

1.5 Body image in the discipline of psychology 28

1.5.1 The psychodynamic perspective 28
1.5.2 The structural-functional perspective 30
1.5.3 Criticism of the structural functional perspective 33
1.5.3.1 The psychologist’s fallacy 35
1.5.3.2 Limitations of the dichotomized model 36
 1.5.3.3 Hypothetical constructs 38
1.5.3.4 The structural-functional model from a broader critical context 40
1.5.3.5 The body image and Critical psychology 42

1.5.4 Practical wisdom: The role of the body image in medical contexts 44
1.5.4.1 Psychiatric settings 44
1.5.4.2 Nursing and rehabilitation settings 45

1.5.5 The psychological study of the body image: An overview 47

CHAPTER TWO
The dynamic body image 49

2.1 Commentary on Schilder’s theory 50

2.2 Introduction to the constructive energies of the psyche 51

2.2.1 Schilder’s interest in the mind-body problem 52
2.2.2 The gestalt idea 53
2.2.3 The philosophical structure of Schilder’s model 54

2.3 The dynamic body image 56

2.3.1 The tri-dimensional idea 57
2.3.2 Dynamic construction 59
2.3.3 The active process 60

2.4 The physiological basis of the body image 61

2.4.1 Perception is synaesthetic 61
2.4.1.1 The phantom limb: A phenomenon of synaesthetic perception 62
2.4.1.2 Autoscopy 63
2.4.1.3 Pain 64
2.4.2 Movement 65
2.4.2.1 The anticipatory plan 65
2.4.2.2 The body needs to be found 66
2.4.2.3 The mass and weight of the body 67
2.4.3 The physiological dimension: Summing up 68

2.5 The libidinous structure of the body image 69

2.5.1 The libidinous structure of the body image and the object world 70
2.5.2 The cohesion of the body image and the role of emotion 71
2.5.2.1 The relation of the body image to narcissism 72
2.5.2.2 The cohesion of the body image and psychopathology 73
2.5.3 Plasticity of the body image 74
2.5.4 The libidinous dimension: Summing up 75

2.6 The sociological dimension of the body image 76

2.6.1 The role of emotion 77
2.6.2 Body image interplay 78
2.6.3 The sociological dimension: Summing up 79

2.7 The constructed body: The significance of Schilder’s theory 79

2.8 The place of Schilder’s theory in the wider literature on the body image 81
CHAPTER THREE
Beyond logical positivism to an alternative approach to the body image 84

3.1 Re-framing the synchronic within the continuity of diachrony 85

3.1.1 The rational observer in positivist psychology 86
3.1.1.1 The rational observer and visual perception 87
3.1.1.2 Visual perception and the phenomenal body 88
3.1.2 What is ‘an image’ 89
3.1.3 A premise for critique 89

3.2 A critique of the role of logical positivism in body image research 91

3.2.1 Logical positivism in psychological research 92
3.2.2 The mind-body problem in research in psychology 94
3.2.3 The mind-body problem and hypothetical constructs in psychology 95
3.2.4 The limits of logical positivism in understanding body image 97
3.2.5 The split between theory and measurement 99
3.2.6 An alternative way forward: The dynamic, diachronic approach
to the body image 100

3.3 The dynamic body image and the moving body 101
3.3.1 Kinesthetic perception 103
3.3.2 The Body awareness and the dynamic body image 104
3.3.3 The psychological immediacy of the kinesthetic perception 106
3.3.4 Body awareness and psychological treatment 107
3.3.4.1 Movement therapy and the role of the body image 108
3.3.4.2 Assumptions these studies share with the dynamic
body image 110

3.4 Parameters guiding an alternative approach 112

3.4.1 Ontology 112
3.4.2 Epistemology 113
3.4.3 The basis for a revision in method for body image research 114

3.5 Core propositions of Schilder’s theory concerning movement 115

3.5.1 The active process 115
3.5.2 The unconscious in the body 116
3.5.3 Anticipatory plans 116
3.5.4 Finding the body 116
3.5.5 Plasticity 117
3.5.6 Reflective emotion 117

3.6 Framing the research questions 118

3.5.1 The aims of the research 118
3.5.2 Research questions 118

CHAPTER FOUR
Rationale for the method 120

4.1 The criteria guiding the focus of the study 120

4.1.1 The importance of theory to the research act 120
4.1.2 The role of qualitative methods 122
4.1.3 The emphasis upon procedural movement 123

4.2 Qualitative methods in context 124

4.2.1 The shape of qualitative methods available to psychological research 125
 4.2.1.1 Realism 126
4.2.1.2 Post-positivism 126
4.2.1.3 Critical theory 127
4.2.1.4 Constructivism 127
4.2.2 Critical realism 128

4.3 The paradigm employed by the present study 129

4.3.1 Assumptions concerning ontology 130
4.3.2 Assumptions concerning the hermeneutic considered appropriate 131
4.3.2.1 Theoretical considerations 131
4.3.2.2 Definitions 132
4.3.3 Assumptions concerning epistemology 133
4.3.4 Summary 134

CHAPTER FIVE
Method 135

5.1 The conceptual framework guiding the research act 135

5.1.1 Interviewing in psychological research 135
5.1.2 Semi-structure interviews 136
5.1.3 A recursive model of interviewing 137

5.2 The research design 137

5.2.1 Sampling 137
5.2.1.1 Women participants 138
5.2.1.2 Specialists in movement 140
5.2.1.3 Performances 141
5.2.1.4 Qualitative sampling techniques 141
5.2.2 Recruitment 142

5.3 Data collection instruments 142

5.3.1 The body image scale 143
5.3.2 The semi-structured interview protocol 145

5.4 Data collection procedure 146

5.5 Data analysis 147

5.5.1 Quantitative data description 147
5.5.2 Qualitative data analysis 147
5.5.2.1 Inductive coding 148
5.5.2.2 Analytic induction and the use of sensitizing concepts 148
5.5.2.3 Memoing 149
5.5.2.4 Data displays 149
5.5.2.5 Identifying patterns in the data 149

CHAPTER SIX
Findings 151

6.1 Characteristics of the sample 151

6.2 Response of participants to the researcher’s requests 152

6.3 Description of the questionnaire 153

6.4 Process of thematic analysis 155
6.4.1 Descriptive coding 155
6.4.2 Memoing 156
6.4.3 Inferential coding 156
6.4.3.1 Analytic induction and the formation of the a priori themes 157
6.4.3.2 Inductive coding and the formation of a posteriori themes 157
6.4.3.3 Overall listing of themes 158
6.4.4 Data reduction 159

6.5 Qualitative themes: Constructive activity 161

6.5.1 The active process 161
6.5.2 Anticipatory plans 165
6.5.3 Finding the body 169
6.5.4 Technique 172
6.5.5 The organizing point 174
6.5.6 The role of abstract concepts 182
6.5.7 The movement-thought relationship 185
6.5.8 Summary concerning constructive activity themes 187
6.5.8.1 The active process 187
6.5.8.2 Anticipatory plans and finding the body 188
6.5.8.3 The organizing point and technique 180
6.5.8.4 Abstract concepts 190

6.6 Qualitative themes: The body reservoir 190

6.6.1 An unconscious in the body 191
6.6.2 The plasticity of the body image 192
6.6.3 Reflective emotion 195
6.6.4 The impulse or need to move 199
6.6.5 Summary concerning the body reservoir themes 201

6.7 Qualitative themes: Social constraints and effects 202

6.7.1 Framing the setting 203
6.7.2 The impact of the social ideal 205
6.7.3 The transcendent effect of the movement-performance 209
6.7.4 Summary of social constraints and effects themes 211

CHAPTER SEVEN
Discussion 214

7.1 Limitations and strengths of the study 214

7.1.1 Sampling 215
7.1.2 Semi-structured interviewing 216
7.1.3 Theory-led research 217
7.1.4 Exploration 219
7.1.5 Overview of the limitations and strengths 219

7.2 Discussion of the findings 220

7.2.1 Constructive activity and the emergence of the sense of bodilyness 221
7.2.1.1 The execution of movement: The role of anticipatory plans 222
7.2.1.2 The execution of movement: the effort to find the body 224
7.2.1.3 The role of conceptual material 226
7.2.1.4 Acquired learning: The emergence of a movement-thought
relationship 227
7.2.1.5 Acquired learning: The organizing point 228
7.2.1.6 Acquired learning: The development of technique 231
7.2.1.7 The active process and the character of dynamic construction 231
 7.2.1.8 Overview: Constructive activity and the sense of bodilyness 232
7.2.2 The body reservoir and the resources of the body image 233
7.2.2.1 The resources of the unconscious and the impulse to move 234
7.2.2.2 The resource provided by body image plasticity 235
7.2.2.3 The resource that is reflective emotion 237
7.2.2.4 The relative intensity of emotion 237
7.2.3 Social constraints and effects framing movement performances 239
7.2.3.1 The frames required for performance 239
7.2.3.2 The social ideals framing the value given to the sexed body 240
7.2.3.3 Transcendent experience framed off 242

7.3 Appraising the findings in light of the research questions 243

CHAPTER EIGHT
Implications of the findings 246

8.1 The heuristic value of Schilder’s theory 246

8.2 Implications for professional practice 249

8.3 Implications for future research 252

8.4 Building theory 255

8.5 Concluding remarks 256

REFERENCES 257
LIST OF APPENDICES Page

Appendix I Recruitment script 269

Appendix II Multi-dimensional Body-self Relations Questionnaire (MBSRQ) 270

Appendix III Semi-structured interview protocol 275

Appendix IV Consent form 277

Appendix V Data matrix

Part A Contemporary dancers 278
Part B Middle-eastern dancers 281
Part C Aerobics instructors 285

Appendix VI Distribution of the 14 themes according to the three Metacodes 288

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Profile of participants according to group and movement experience 152

Table 2 Means and standard deviations on the MBSRQ subscales contrasted

with the normative data 154

Table 3 A priori and a posteriori themes derived from data reduction 158

Table 4 Fourteen themes organized according to the three metacodes 160

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 A cognitive-behavioral model of body image development and

experiences 32

Figure 2 Representation of the historical-conceptual links in the study of the

body image in psychology 47

Figure 3 Visual representation of the temporal organization of dynamic

construction of the body image 59

Figure 4 Components of data analysis: Interactive model 150

Figure 5 Diagrammatic summary of constructive activity themes 188

Figure 6 The frame: A pictorial representation of the relationships between

the themes identified as social constraints and effects 212
 ABSTRACT

The study of the psychological experience of the personal body in the discipline of psychology,

through the concept referred to as the body image, has its roots in neurology and

psychoanalysis. This thesis begins with a review of body image research across three disciplines:

neuroscience, psychoanalysis and psychology. The literature review places the work titled ‘The

image and appearance of the human body’ by neurologist and psychoanalyst Paul Schilder

(1935/1978) at the intersection of these three disciplines. Schilder’s text described the

organization of the body image as a dynamic and tri-dimensional structuralization. Since the mid-

twentieth century, psychological research has taken special interest in the body image as a topic

for study. However, the paradigm guiding that research enterprise has transformed the holistic

quality of Schilder’s work, identified its organization as antiquated and often unsuitable for

empirical research. This thesis argues that Schilder’s theory is as relevant today as ever, and that

psychology would benefit greatly from a re-consideration of its relevance to empirical study. To

demonstrate the potential of Schilder’s theory, the present study conducted 15 semi-structured

interviews with women participating in three styles of movement and performance: contemporary

dance, Middle-eastern dance (or belly dance) and aerobics (instructors). The investigation

considered core propositions described by Schilder with respect to the role of movement and the

body image, to explore structuralization from the point of view of procedural movement. The

study sought also to examine the extent to which the findings might serve the development of

theory on the body image. The findings established a priori and a posteriori themes, and these

served to demonstrate how Schilder’s theory provides a sound framework for empirical inquiry in

psychology. The implications of the present study highlight the explanatory power of that theory,

especially the way it illuminates a new perspective from which a fuller understanding of the role of

the body image might be gleaned. Finally, the implications highlight the importance of the actual

presence of the physical body in the construction of the body image, particularly the kinesthetic

perceptual system, and underline the importance of re-visiting Schilder’s theory in order to open

up new opportunities for interdisciplinary research.

 1

CHAPTER ONE

BODY IMAGE UNDERSTOOD AND MISUNDERSTOOD

The discipline of psychology has conducted vigorous research on the body image since the mid-

twentieth century. In more recent times there has been increasing interest in the psychological

understanding of the body image within popular culture, through the popular press (Baum, 2000),

and especially in the body image of women. However, the way knowledge is produced in the

discipline of psychology is often criticized. Social constructionist analyses, especially, have

highlighted taken-for-granted assumptions operating within psychological research. They have

described how such assumptions have compromised the quality of the knowledge produced by

that research and the veracity of the many concepts used to understand psychological

experience (Smith, Harre, & Langenhove, 1995; Valentine, 1992; Parker & Shotter, 1990).

Assumptions underlying these criticisms derive from a range of critical positions proffered by

post-structuralist ideas that question the empirical authority assumed by certain models of

‘science’.

The questions and/ or the problems posed by the social constructionist critique and critical theory

more generally for the discipline of psychology, derive from a thorough consideration of the limits

of language to capture exactitude in the description of subjective experience. This infers that

constructs used within the discipline of psychology, like the body image, may have descriptive

value, but may not actually capture the full extent of the experience to which they claim

relevance.

Additionally, experiences such as those associated with psychological disorders may require a

more thorough going theoretical basis if they are to be relevant to the study of both normal and

abnormal experience. In other words, psychological terminology needs to place greater emphasis

on the nature of the frames by which it explains or interprets the often-rational character of

human experience. Hence there are issues requiring some critical awareness by psychologists in
 2

the research domain with respect to the classification and naming of subjective experience in

technical terms. Correspondingly, psychological nomenclature and theory are important to our

understanding of human experience.

In this context, this thesis is an exploration of theory and empirical methods as they pertain to the

study of the dynamic body image described by Schilder (1935/1978). The thesis centralizes the

importance of his work and demonstrates that authors and researchers within the discipline of

psychology have largely overlooked it.

This thesis develops an argument that first examines why psychologists in the field have

overlooked Schilder’s (1935/1978) work, and introduces interdisciplinary studies pertaining to the

body image in Chapter One. Later chapters explain Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory and explain in

more depth how his work has been so thoroughly overlooked in research settings in the discipline

of psychology. This thesis then reasons in considerable depth as to why his dynamic theory is

essential to the furtherance of psychological knowledge about the body image, and presents a

qualitative study in which Schilder’s conceptualizations are translated for that inquiry.

Pertinent to the interdisciplinary discussion that follows, is the consideration of how post-

structuralist ideas put the production of psychological knowledge into question. To exemplify this

problem, the discussion turns first to the work by Rose (1997) in which the limits of language are

brought to bear upon the task of knowledge production within the discipline of psychology.

Rose (1997) mapped a process in which he considered psychology as an influential discourse on

the formation of social subjectivity in modern life. He described in detail the methodological and

broader philosophical problems for the researcher in the discipline of psychology that were also

noted by Ussher (1989) and Malson (1997). Specifically, Rose argued that when psychological

concepts enter everyday language, that is when they become ideas of commonplace use rather

than simply technical terms used in specific contexts, they bring about the potential to change the

conceptual landscape available for thinking about, and understanding who we are as

psychological beings. His argument was based on the notion that humans are linguistic beings,
 3

and that human subjectivity is formed through the structure of language and its articulation in

social communication. Rose’s paper drew attention to the role that technical ideas play in

everyday language through what he referred to as “the new experts of experience” (p. 224) and

the “psy disciplines” (p. 226). These he argued have become the new intellectual authorities on

human conduct. He wrote:

…the relation to ourselves which we can have today has been profoundly shaped by the
rise of the psy disciplines, their languages, types of explanation and judgement, their
techniques and their expertise. The beliefs, norms and techniques which have come into
existence under the sign of psy … have profoundly shaped the kinds of persons we are
able to be – the ways we think of ourselves, the ways we act upon ourselves, the kinds of
persons we are presumed to be in our consuming, producing, loving, praying, sickening
and dying. (p. 226)

Rose concluded that it is essential to examine the anatomy of the ideas produced by the psy

disciplines like psychology, in order to fully understand the impact of these ideas on the way we

think about ourselves. The current thesis thus uses Rose’s argument as a springboard to survey

the anatomy of the body image as it is popularly understood and presents what is largely an

alternative approach. The anatomy of the body image refers to assumptions used by researchers

in the discipline of psychology when interpreting the conceptual limits of the phenomenon of body

image and when organizing those limits in discussion.

The discipline of psychology generally proposes that the body image is an “internal

representation of your own outer appearance” (Thompson, Heinberg, Altabe, & Tantleff-Dunn,

1999, p. 4). This internal representation is considered to provoke a psychological response that

can be examined from a number of levels of analysis, such as affect, attitude, perceptual

accuracy or cognitive bias. Ironically, the levels of analysis least likely to be used are those

pertaining to the theoretical origins of the body image, that is to say the theoretical ideas within

which the concept was first generated and elaborated.

1.1 The origin of the body image concept

The conceptual development of the idea now referred to as the body image emerged within

neurology at the turn of the twentieth century. Head, a British neurologist, has been generally
 4

credited with first proposing the term ‘body schema’ in the English speaking world, although

Guimon (1997a) noted also the contributions by his colleague Holmes (1911-12), and their

French and German neuroscientific contemporaries, Bonnier (1905) and Pick (1922). These early

writers are well known for their study of patients with brain lesions, and Tiemersma (1989) has

described their work as the study of a range of disorders of language and recognition as well as

motor abnormalities and sensory disturbances. A more thorough going description of Schilder’s

(1935/1978) work is presented in Chapter Two.

Schilder (1935/1978) coined the term ‘body image’. Its conceptual genesis emerged from what

Head and Holmes (1911-12) had previously identified as the ‘postural model of the body’. The

postural model was a neurological entity that accounted for the ability to move with ease through

space without conscious awareness. Head and Holmes described the postural model as having a

plastic character supporting the immediacy of postural shifts and the accurate localization of body

parts including the accuracy required when using implements held in the hands.

Anything which participates in the conscious movement of the our bodies is added to the
model of ourselves and becomes part of these schemata: a woman’s power of localization
may extend to the feather in her hat. (p. 188)

The postural model was posited as a generative, albeit organically derived, capacity that was

shaped by experience and was plastic in its activity across time and in the context of bodily

spatiality.

1.1.1 Schilder’s opening remarks concerning the body image concept

Schilder published, The image and appearance of the human body: Studies in the constructive

energies of the psyche in 1935. Schilder’s text contains the most often recited definition for body

image presented in psychological research. It is located in the first sentence of the first paragraph

of the introduction, presented below:

The image of the human body means the picture of our own body which we form in our
mind, that is to say, the way it appears to ourselves. There are sensations which are given
to us. We see part of the body-surface. We have tactile, thermal, pain impressions. There
are sensations which come from the muscles and their sheaths – sensations coming from
the innervation of the muscles – and sensations from the viscera. Beyond that there is the
 5

immediate experience that there is a unity of the body. This unity is perceived, yet it is
more than a perception. We call it a schema of our body or bodily schema following Head,
who emphasizes the importance of the knowledge of the position of the body, postural
model of the body. The body schema is the tri-dimensional image everybody has about
himself [sic]. We may call it “body image”. The term indicates that we are not dealing with a
mere sensation or imagination. There is a self- appearance of the body. It indicates also
that, although it has come through the senses, it is not a mere perception. There are
mental pictures and representations involved in it, but it is not mere representation. (p. 11)

This definition embodies a number of complex ideas. Schilder noted that the body image was a

picture of our own body. That picture was “mental”, but there were also mental representations

and he did not differentiate how a picture may differ from or compare with a representation here.

Schilder wrote also that the body image developed from many levels of perception. For example,

he referred to the self-referential impressions supported by interoceptive and exteroceptive

sensation, but he added that perception did not provide the sum of what he referred to as the

body image. Rather, he went on to suggest that perception transformed into something manifold

and that the sense of unity associated with that manifold experience derived from much more

than a sum of perception. Shontz (1969, p. 170) observed that it certainly could not bear any

similarity to “representational objects” like photographs. By the end of this excerpt, which is only

half of his opening paragraph, it becomes less clear what single entity Schilder was trying to

describe. Nevertheless, the tri-dimensional nature of his concept is a critical feature.

1.1.2 Schilder’s tri-dimensional concept

Schilder’s (1935/1978) concept of the body image was tri-dimensional in that he formulated it as

having a libidinous structure, as well as both physiological and sociological dimensions, thus

referring to three perspectives that one can acquire about one’s own body. Schilder was deeply

interested in the relation between the mind and body, and his dynamic framework was thus an

attempt to explore mutuality between organic and psychological disorders of the central nervous

system. His three dimensions were referred to as “the physiological basis of the body image”,

“the libidinous structure of the body image” and “the sociology of the body image” (p. 5-6).

Schilder identified the physiological dimension in which the body is conceptualized as a material

entity. This is most clearly demonstrated by the body we learn about through the experience of

physical pain. The sociological dimension referred to the undeniable influence that cultural ideas
 6

have on the felt reality of the body. It assumed that different societies build different impressions

about the potentiality of the body and about its relationship to psychic experience. The libidinous

dimension referred to the experience of our body as a loved object and felt reality. This

dimension was conceived from psychoanalytic ideas and thereby included the notion of

conscious and unconscious levels of experience. Schilder kept these dimensions separate to the

extent that each has its own unique logic, but he was drawn to their manifold expression in

human experience.

This tri-dimensional construct has largely been overlooked in psychological research in the post-

war period. Schilder’s 1935 text has often been asserted as a seminal achievement, but the

critical assumptions on which it was based have been largely ignored. For example, Thompson,

et al. (1999) acknowledged Schilder’s work as eclectic and “multidimensional” (1999, p. 5), but

identified it as antiquated because it used psychoanalytic ideas. Again, Pruzinsky and Cash

(2002) ignored both the dynamic and tri-dimensional character of Schilder’s theory, reduced the

complexity of the monograph to a definition based on the often-used first line of his introduction,

and then discounted the validity of that definition on the basis that it is superficial. Schilder’s idea,

they suggested, fails to explain the “complexity” of the concept (p. 7). The one framework so far

likely to be capable of integrating Schilder’s ideas on the body image is that of psychoanalytic

theory, but one finds little discussion of the body image in that field either. Anzieu (1990) noted,

for example, that Laplanche and Pontalis (1988) failed to even recognize its significance for

inclusion as one of their chief concepts in their definitive dictionary of psychoanalytic terms.

Schilder’s work has been regularly summarized in psychological papers for its historical

importance, but to date it has not been applied to conceptualization for empirical research.

1.1.3 The dynamic and emergent body image in Schilder’s theory

One of the most striking features of Schilder’s (1935/1978) monograph is his interpretation of the

body image as dynamic activity as well as a psychological entity. The entity he conceptualized

was interpreted from the textual descriptions given by his patients of their phenomenal

experience, and he organized those descriptions according to the three dimensions he referred to
 7

as the physiology of the body image, the libidinous structure and the sociology of the body. The

activity he attributed to the phenomenon across these three dimensions was dynamic. The

organization of this dynamic takes the form of a process or diachronic activity. A lengthy

discussion of the nature of diachronicity and synchronicity is presented in Section 3.1 below. The

more general distinction is presented in the following.

Textual description, like language, can be organized either synchronically or diachronically.

Synchrony and diachrony are terms used in the study of semiotics that, according to Payne

(1997), identify two different time relationships in which language functions. Synchrony refers to a

relationship between ideas that are considered to be “co-present” (Colapietro, 1993, p. 191). It

refers to structural relationships between concepts built on the simultaneity of events.

Alternatively, diachrony refers to a relationship between ideas that are formalized according to

differences that unfold over time. It is characteristic of historical relationships between criteria and

concepts built upon the notion of change. In the structural linguistics of Saussure, synchrony and

diachrony were described as a dichotomous and oppositional pair (Culler, 1976). Colapietro

(1993) on the other hand referred to them as “dyadic” (p. 86). This suggests that synchrony and

diachrony are an inseparable unity. From a psychoanalytic standpoint, Winnicott (1967b/1971)

demonstrated this through the idea that continuity, a diachronic concept, gives place to contiguity,

a synchronic one. One necessarily implies the other, and it is the synchronically organized ideas

that give salience to the temporal organization of diachronically organized ones.

Schilder‘s description of the body image centralized the temporal quality of dynamic construction

characterized. “[Body image] is not a structure, but a structuralization” he noted (Schilder,

1935/1978, p. 174). He then added a secondary focus to the primacy he attributed to the dynamic

that was represented by the psychological effort required to consciously organize and construct a

subjective understanding of one’s phenomenal experience of the body image. The concepts of

diachrony and synchrony thus illuminate how the layers within Schilder’s theory circumscribe the

body image as an emergent entity that, rather than being simply a set of separate constructions,

is an activity that may be observed through the observation of changes marked by synchronically

organized information. Schilder’s theory will be described in greater detail in the next chapter.
 8

The remainder of this chapter is a review of the discourses available for a broad understanding of

the body image, namely that of neuroscience, psychoanalytic theory, psychology and, although

incorporating many of the ideas used in these three disciplines, nursing and rehabilitation

settings.

1.2 Body image in neuroscience

Neuroscience is traditionally concerned with the observation and analysis of the human nervous

system. Pinel (1993, p. 24) identified it as “the scientific study of the nervous system” and

described a range of sub-disciplines within it, including neuroanatomy, biopsychology and

biological psychiatry, among others. Neuroscience is thus a very broad concept that refers to

both methods of inquiry, and knowledge production, as well as methods of diagnosis and

treatment.

Hill (1989) described neuroscientific study as the task of formulating deductive generalizations

and laws about the function of the human central nervous system. Within that empirical tradition

is the discipline of clinical neurology from which Schilder derived his expertise on the body image.

Tiemersma (1989) summarized clinical neurology’s fascination in the body image and body

schema to investigations of hemiasomatognosia (the lack of awareness for one half of the body),

anosognosia for hemiplegia (the imperception of a paralysis to one half of one’s body), the study

of body localization difficulties like right-left orientation and agnosic, apraxic and aphasic

conditions. Autoscopia (seeing one’s body from a distant point and feeling it to be strange or

alien) has been associated with the study of the body image as has the study of phantom limb

phenomena and experiences of abnormal body dimensions.

Neuroscientific interest in the body image was consolidated through the work of both Head

(1926) and Schilder (1935/1978). Head concentrated on experiences like those described above.

Schilder also studied disturbances of body perception, but expanded Head’s concept beyond its

physiological parameters. Schilder’s monograph stretched the limits of Head’s postural model in

order to understand not simply functional relationships within the central nervous system, but also
 9

1
the phenomenal experience of the subject or patient, which he interpreted according a

psychoanalytic framework. Schilder approached the notion of the body image from the point of

view that neurological symptoms and psychological experience were built from the same stuff. In

other words both had an organic basis, but were organized according to different laws.

He wrote:

I am not of the opinion that the organic and the psychogenic cases are identical in their
structure. The psychogenic cases take place in absolutely different levels. But the same
basic principles direct the psychogenic and organic disorder (Schilder, 1935/1978, p. 73).
The organic patterns of the body image…are not really impaired or destroyed in the
psychogenic cases, though they are not used. The organic apparatus is out of function. It
could be used, if the emotions of the patient would allow this. But the psychogenic
repression also always takes with it something of the organic sphere. (p. 74)

Function and structure are differentiated here, although they are both linked by their effect on the

performance of the central nervous system. Schilder considered the problem of the relationship

between the neurological structure of the body image and phenomenal self-experience in the

context of his three dimensions.

1.2.1 Schilder’s neuroscientific contribution in context

Schilder’s (1935/1978) work has continued to occupy an important place in the development of

body image theory in neuroscience. Tiemersma (1989) identified him as having investigated

more about body experience than any other researcher. Schilder’s monograph took an

exploratory approach. He described a theory in which he presented the possibility that

consciousness may play a role in the ordinary function of the central nervous system, and thus

underlined the importance of understanding psychological phenomena from both neuroscientific

and psychodynamic points of view. The study of psychological experience using interdisciplinary

influences has risen in popularity in very recent times and is evident in the emergence of neuro-

psychoanalysis. However Schilder’s text did not inspire such a shift at the time of its publication.

The historical record illustrates that the period following the publication of his monograph is

1
Metzinger (2003) described phenomenal states as concrete experience (e.g. physical
sensation). “Phenomenal experience…is an invisible interface, and internal medium that allows
an organism to interact with itself” (2003, p. 556).
 10

characterized by a very marked differentiation between the foci of empirical study in

neuroscience and psychoanalysis. Hill (1989) identified this historical split as the outcome of

Freud abandoning neurology and pursuing his interest in functional disorders from a clinical and

narrative point of view. Hill thus characterized the central distinction between neuroscience and

psychoanalysis is being one of method. Neuroscience, he suggested develops laws about the

central nervous system that are common to all human beings, while psychodynamic ideas use

frameworks that enable the interpretation of what is unique to each person.

The literature on the body image in the post war period illustrated the epistemological difference

that arose as a result of this split. Critchley’s (1950) article titled: The body image in Neurology

was organized in such a way that neurological and psychiatric observations were presented

separately. The everyday experience of the body image and the dynamic activity described

earlier by Schilder (1935/1978) became absent, and the tri-dimensional model was abandoned.

Within the field of neurology, this historical division is now identified as an obstacle to a more

integrated understanding of psychological and medical conditions pertaining to movement.

Lennox and Lennox (2002) noted that:

The irritating historical division between neurology and psychiatry is at it most arbitrary in
the field of movement disorders. All of the major movement disorders (such as Parkinson’s
disease, idiopathic dystonia, Huntington’s disease, and Gilles de le Tourette’s syndrome)
have important psychiatric dimensions; indeed these are often the primary determinants of
quality of life. Similarly many of the major psychiatric disorders (such as schizophrenia and
depression) involve abnormalities of movement, even though psychiatrists and
neurologists have traditionally used different terms to describe them. Perhaps as a
consequence of the historic division, these huge areas of neuropsychiatric overlap have
not been studied as intensively as they deserve…. (p. 28)

1.2.2 Differentiating body image from body schema

The literature on the body image in the neurosciences has highlighted two principal themes. The

first is that phantom limb research has demonstrated a continuous and unbroken relationship to

the work of Head and Schilder. The second is that the terms body schema and body image have

very often been used interchangeably, while at other times they have been painstakingly

differentiated. Tiemersma (1989) noted how Poeck and Orgass (1971) challenged the lack of

specificity often found in the psychological literature. These authors asserted that it was important
 11

to locate the notion of the schema within a neurophysiological understanding of the body, but this

has hardly been strictly observed over the years. For example, as recently as 1997 a

neuroscientific publication by Berlucchi and Aglioti (1997) noted that “ the dynamic organization

of one’s own body and its relations to that of other bodies is variously termed body schema, body

image and corporeal awareness” (p. 560). Compounding the confusion is the fact that Schilder

(1935/1978) did not clearly and immediately differentiate body image from body schema.

Nevertheless, effort has continued to be made to differentiate these concepts carefully, as the

following sections illustrate.

1.2.2.1 Body schema: A functional capacity

Gallagher and Cole (1995/1998) have made a conceptual distinction between the body image

and the body schema in describing the rehabilitation of a deafferented patient (I.W.), whose

condition was characterized by a loss of both proprioception and touch from the neck down. They

described the skills developed during this patient’s rehabilitation and outlined his progress in

acquiring a partial functional substitution of his damaged proprioception, through what they

contended is a greater conscious effort guided by his body image. These authors described how

the loss of proprioception and touch activated a greater effort by I.W. to become conscious of his

body image and how he used this awareness to execute ordinary movement. The authors

deduced that the body schema is different from body image, and posited it as a non-conscious,

basic condition for habitual movement:

A body schema involves a system of motor capacities, abilities, and habits that enable
movement and the maintenance of posture. (Gallagher & Cole, p. 132)

Again they elaborated:

The visual, tactile and proprioceptive awareness that I have of my body may help me to
learn a new dance step, improve my tennis game, or imitate the movements of others.
Ordinarily, however, in walking I do not have to think about putting one foot in front of
another… Posture and the majority of bodily movements usually operate without the help
of a body image. (p. 133)

Further Gallagher and Cole stated:

 12

The body schema consists of a system of prepersonal anonymous processes. Even in the
cases of intentional movement, most bodily adjustments that subtend balance and posture
are not subject to my personal decision. (p. 134)

According to this formulation, body schema is a non-conscious functional capacity and is plastic

at the level of motor functioning. From the point of view of phenomenal experience, the body

schema is characteristic of propensities aiding motility, such as proprioception. In its absence (as

in the case of I.W.), motility can be guided by the perceptual aspects of the body image. The

body image is distinct from the body schema, but it can take up the same function under certain

conditions.

Under these conditions, Gallagher and Cole (1995/1998) described the body image in the

following way:

The body image consists of a complex set of intentional states – perceptions, mental
representations, beliefs and attitudes – in which the intentional object of such states is
one’s own body. Thus the body image involves a reflective intentionality. (p. 132)

They went on:

[It] involves a partial, abstract and articulated perception of the body insofar as thought,
attention and emotional evaluation attend to only one part or area or aspect of the body at
a time. It is also possible that as a set of beliefs or attitudes about the body, the body
image can involve inconsistency or contradictions. (p. 134)

The body image is closer to the idea of a representation or thought than a functional capacity. It

is an idea and perception and, according to Metzinger (2003), is the limit of what can be called

‘my body’ in phenomenal experience:

You are never in contact with your own body – as an embodied, conscious entity you are
the contents of an image, a dynamical image that constantly changes in a very high
number of different dimensions. However, this image is at the same time a physical part of
your body, as it invariably possesses a true neurobiological description. (p. 301-2)

In brief, according to this formulation, body image embraces all that we come to know as our own

body.
 13

1.2.2.2 The relationship between body schema and body image

Gallagher and Meltzoff (1996) provided a discussion that clarifies the relationship between the

functioning of the body schema and the body image. Their paper reviewed experiments

conducted with neonates and explored the theoretical implications of the findings of those

experiments for Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological theory of perception and psychological

development. The experimental findings they described showed that an innate supramodal
2
perceptual system can be observed in neonates only hours after birth. This they suggested

confirms that there is a genetically determined in-built neural framework for the experience of the

body from the moment of birth and that it is open to modification over the human lifetime. This

structure is evidenced by research indicating that neonates have the ability for “invisible imitation”

(Gallagher & Meltzoff, p. 9). Invisible imitation is the ability to imitate the actions of another

without any insight into the structure of one’s own body.

The differentiation that develops between the experience of the body image and body schema

comes about with the physical and psychological development of the infant. The discussion by

Gallagher and Meltzoff (1996) suggested that what makes the schema and the image different is

the level of the nervous system in which their development takes place and the way each are

organized. Their work, along with that of Gallagher and Cole (1995/1998), thus magnify the role

that self-referential systems of perception serve in the integration of a sense of bodilyness.

Massumi (2002), an author in philosophy, has reinforced this idea by proposing that the self-

referential systems associated with the perception of bodily position and movement work in
3
tandem with exoreferential systems, and that these two are integrated by synaesthetic

perception to achieve the psycho-physiological experience associated with bodilyness.

2
‘Supramodal perceptual system’ refers to the idea that the visual and motor systems
communicate within the same language from birth. (Gallagher & Meltzoff, 1996. p. 225)
3
“There is in fact a sixth sense directly attuned to the movement of the body: proprioception. It
involves specialized sensors in the muscles and joints. Proprioception is a self-referential sense,
in that what it most directly registers are displacements of the parts of the body relative to each
other. Vision is an exoreferential sense, registering distances from the eye” (Massumi, 2002, p.
179).
 14

Bodilyness is both a physiological and psychological experience. It emerges from the capacity

provided by the body schema but in order for it to become the phenomenal experience, it must be

transformed. Metzinger (2003) described this shift as the outcome of construction. He noted that
4
studies on schizophrenia , and arguably the work by Gallagher and Meltzoff (1996), have

revealed that proprioception is not simply a set of coordinates or a functional capacity but is an

“ongoing process” (Metzinger, 2003, p. 441) that lends itself to the construction of the body image

from the moment of birth. This constructive activity integrates and differentiates the evanescent

experience of one’s own body and provides a phenomenal experience of constancy and stability

associated with it across time, that each person comes to know as ‘my body’. These comments

are not very different from that which Schilder (1935/1978) presented seventy years earlier.

1.2.3 The body image and phantom phenomena

After amputation of an arm or a leg, patients often continue to feel sensations that seem to derive

from the absent limb. The phantom limb has always had a prominent place in ideas about the

body image in neurology. Schilder (1935/1978) referred to the phantom as “one of the clearest

expressions of the existence of the postural model” (1935/1978, p. 63) and added to Head and

Holmes (1911-12) idea, his observation of the role that “optic images” (Schilder, p. 63) play in the

construction of phantom experience. Tiemersma (1989) noted that phantom experience occurs in

practically one hundred percent of amputees over the age of five years with normal intellectual

abilities. They may appear with associated pain, but are not always painful. Patients with

phantoms showing no signs of pain gradually find that their phantoms disappear, perhaps

telescoping into the limb stump over time, but experiments have shown that it can be regenerated

easily through stimulation. Similarly, Ramachandran (1998) has described the ease with which

phantoms have also been generated in persons with intact limbs in experimental settings.

Aplasic phantoms are a specific class of phantom phenomena experienced by patients born

without designated limbs that present the phenomenal experience of the absent limb without ever

4
Most notably Georgieff & Jeannerod (1998).
 15

having experienced its functional capacity. This class of phantom is unique, according to

Metzinger (2003), not simply because these patients have not lost a limb, but because aplasics

do not report forgetting that they do not have one, an experience common to amputees. Aplasic

phantoms are unique because they are clearly built up without the functional experience of the

limb itself. This idea is not inconsistent with Schilder’s (1935/1978) description of the role played

by libidinous relationships in the construction of the body image, or of the role that our contact

with the social world, and particularly other bodies, plays in the building up of the body image.

In contemporary neuroscience, the body image is conceptualized in much the same way that

Schilder described it. Ramachandran (1998, p. 1851) called it “something that unites all [our]

diverse sensory impressions and seems to endure as a single entity in space and time”. He also

stated that:

Even though this image is constructed from evanescent and fragmentary evidence derived
from multiple sensory systems such as vision, proprioception and hearing, we have a
stable internal mental construct of a unitary corporeal self that endures in space and time,
at least until its eventual annihilation in death. (p. 1854)

In neuroscience, the body image provides a stable idea that supports the relationship between

phenomenal experience and the subpersonal functions of the central nervous system.

Ramachandran and Rogers-Ramachandran (2000), following Ramachandran (1998),

Ramachandran and Hirstein (1998) and Ramachandran, Rogers-Ramachandran and Cobb

(1995), demonstrated how the body image can be manipulated and they pointed to a

fundamental plasticity and dynamic structure that it can imply for brain function. Their

interpretation of the body image is that it can be understood purely in terms of physiology. They

did not suggest, as Schilder (1935/1978) proposed, that the dynamic is a psycho-physiological

activity, even though, from a psychodynamic perspective, their research implied just that.

1.2.4 Dynamic aspects of the phantom experience

The investigations from which Ramachandran and Rogers-Ramachandran (2000) took their

evidence did not derive from the study of the body image as such, but from the study of patients’

experience of phantom phenomena. However, their research work has implications for the
 16

general understanding of the body image in psychology, since it suggests that the body image is

an organic entity constructed from synaesthetic perception, that can be transformed through the

illusory effect of visual perception. Ramachandran (1998) described the experimental setting and

procedures as follows:

We placed a vertical sagittal mirror on the table in front of the patient. If the patient’s
paralysed phantom was, say, on the left side of the mirror, he placed his right hand in an
exact mirror-symmetrical location on the right side of the mirror. If he looked into the shiny
right side of the mirror, the reflection of his own hand was optically superimposed on the
felt location of his phantom, so that he had the distinct visual illusion that the phantom had
been resurrected. If he now made mirror-symmetric movements while looking in the mirror,
he received visual feedback that the phantom was obeying his command. (p. 1854)

Summarizing the results of the series of experiments in which this procedure was used,

Ramachandran and Hirstein (1998) noted an array of experiences. Six patients felt their phantom

move and another three felt that, when a tactile sensation was made to their intact limb, it

referred to their phantom hand. Four patients felt no effect. One patient felt his telescoped stump

disappear, another four had their phantom pain relieved. Ramachandran and Hirstein (1998)

concluded that synaesthetic perception was the central feature guiding their results.

Given that these findings are all examples of visual sensations being experienced as
somatic sensations they are by definition synaesthesia … Taken collectively, the
experiments suggest that there must be a great deal of back-and-forth interaction between
vision and touch, and that the strictly modular/hierarchical model of brain function
popularized by artificial intelligence researchers must be replaced with a more dynamic
view.… (Ramachandran and Hirstein, 1998, p. 1622)

The plasticity identified by Ramachandran and Hirstein (1998) could be accounted for by a

biofeedback model wherein visual perception combines synaesthetically to transform bodily

experience. However, this transformation does not affect every patient in the same way and this

diversity highlights the role served by the individual’s consciousness in the construction of the

body image. These researchers concluded that the brain has a dynamic quality, and that it is

characterized by the “plasticity left over from infancy” (p. 1626), where synaesthetic perception is

the basis for such plasticity.

As a final comment, it must be noted that the procedure described by Ramachandran (1998) is

first and foremost an illusion, and like the performance of any illusion the participants in his

studies were enticed to go along with its fascination. However, the aim of those studies was not

to examine the role of “reflective intentionality” (Gallagher & Cole, 1995/1998, p. 132) in the
 17

construction of the body image. Rather, Ramachandran and his colleagues were interested in

how to understand the body image from the point of view of brain function. Reflective

intentionality and the effect of a mirror illusion upon self-experience and self-identity are more

thoroughly examined and described in the psychoanalytic literature. It is noteworthy that

Schilder’s (1935/1978) conceptualization of the dynamic changes that occur in the experience of

one’s body image were influenced by both the neuroscience and psychoanalytic theory of his

day.

1.3 Psychoanalytic perspectives on body image

The psychoanalytic understanding of the body image is in some way an extension of the

neurological model in that it acknowledges the organic basis of psychological functioning, but

rather organizes ideas around what Silverman (1996) referred to as the “ideational

representative” (p. 9) in phenomenal experience, rather than around an objectively framed

organic system.

While the term body image is not regularly used in the psychoanalytic literature, its function is

tacitly accepted. Its salience was indicated by Federn’s (1952) concept of ego feeling:

Ego feeling is the sensation, constantly present of one’s own person – the ego’s own
perception of itself. This self-experience is a permanent, though never equal, entity, which
is not an abstraction but a reality. It is an entity, which stands in relation to the continuity of
the person in respect to time, space and causality. (p. 60-1)

Ego feeling is not an image, but it implies the existence of one. This is pertinent to the study of

phantom phenomena and the studies conducted by Ramachandran (2000) and his colleagues to

the extent that the constructed experience of continuity associated with the body image is the

very thing that gives phantom experience its salience. In the psychoanalytic literature, the body

image has been recognized as the concept through which the sense of continuity of self in time,

space and causality is experienced. In other words, one’s own feeling of bodilyness has been

viewed as central to the integrity of psychoanalytical experience in general.

 18

1.3.1 The bodily ego

In order to understand the context in which the body image is situated in psychoanalytic theory, it

is important to review some central ideas pertaining to the body. Freud did not use the term body

image, but contextualized what he referred to as the bodily ego within his much broader

discussion on the structure and formation of the ego. Specifically the bodily ego idea emerges in

the second section of Freud’s (1923/1986) paper entitled The ego and the id. It is this idea upon

which Schilder (1935/1978) built his thesis. Freud (1923/1986) wrote:

A person’s own body, and above all its surface, is a place from which both external and
internal perceptions may spring. It is seen like any other object, but to the touch it yields
two kinds of sensations, one of which may be equivalent to an internal perception.
Psychophysiology has fully discussed the manner in which a person’s own body attains its
special position among other objects in the world of perception. Pain, too, seems to play a
part in the process, and the way in which we gain new knowledge of our organs during
painful illnesses is perhaps a model of the way by which in general we arrive at the idea of
our body. The ego is first and foremost a bodily ego; it is not merely a surface entity, but is
itself the projection of a surface (p. 450-451).

Freud was mostly concerned in this paper to describe the development of the ego. In this

passage, he pointed to a double-sided sensorial body (with an inside and an outside sensorial

experience), and to the emergence of the idea that comes to represent our body and on which

the ego establishes itself.

1.3.2 Freud’s contribution to body image ideas

Body image was not described explicitly by Freud (1905/1986; 1923/1986), but was implied by

his work. Without hesitation, Shontz (1969, p. 166) suggested “that body image and ego are

virtually synonymous terms”. This assertion by him, which he moderated in successive passages

of his text, did confuse the peripheral versus core experiences associated with the body image

and ego, respectively. This confusion was not uncommon. Guimon (1997a), for example, noted

that Fisher and Cleveland (1958/1967) and others have regularly interpreted many of Freud’s

ideas from his Three essays on the theory of sexuality (1905/1986) as being a direct description

of the body image.

 19

In the Three essays on the theory of sexuality Freud (1905/1986) proposed the development of

the bodily erogenous zones through stages of psychosexual development. He assumed that this

development in the oral stage, was supported by the feeding and other care received by infants

in their first years of life. Regular contact and care by mother (or carer) was seen to cultivate a

topographical experience of the body’s surface, including the bodily orifices, onto the infant

psyche. The resultant web of libidinous sensitivity is felt and mapped by the ego, and thereby

becomes the basis upon which the infant learns to differentiate the external world from the body

itself. The final point in this development is settled when the sensitivities mapped onto the body

are associated with the bodily ego, that is the idea that arrives for ‘my body’, rather than entirely

with the rhythm and contact of the external world. The body is thereby constructed, and this point

in development is associated with primary narcissism. Since Freud, primary narcissism has been

a major focus of theoretical discussion in the psychoanalytic literature. Several theorists have

identified primary narcissism to be central in the emergence of one’s experience of the body and

identified the role of mirroring as crucial to this achievement. Two conceptualizations of the effect

of mirroring in psychological development are presented below, that of Lacan (1949/1977) and

Winnicott (1967a/1971).

1.3.3 The body, the signifier and the image of the body

In certain key psychoanalytic writings since Freud, the development of the body image has been

described through the concept of “the mirror stage”. According to Lacan (1949/1977), the mirror

stage refers to the point in time when the young infant first recognizes himself or herself in the

reflection of the mirror. In Lacan’s account it is the stage from which the apprehension of one’s

reflection inaugurates the earliest experience of self-awareness that Laplanche and Pontalis

(1973, p. 251) referred to as a “genetic moment”, since it is also, in Lacan’s description, the

moment when the child first enters language. This entry point is both a gleeful and traumatic

experience for the infant.

According to Lacan (1949/1977), the mirror stage marks the infant’s first identification with its own

body. As a genetic moment, it is the point from which the child adopts a subjective “I” position,

and the moment when an unconscious mind is formed through the repression of a traumatic
 20

experience. While the visual gestalt in the mirror reflection provides an outline for the infant that

captures its newly formed self-awareness (i.e. having a body for the first time), it correspondingly

tears apart the sense of cohesion formerly associated with the felt body. The trauma of the mirror

stage is the awareness that the body must be reconstructed. The jubilation of the mirror stage

arrives with the awareness that there is a medium through which to do that, and that medium is

language.

The mirror reflection presented to the infant has embedded in it the meaning through which the

primary carer sensitized the infant’s body in the first months of life. But that meaning also disrupts

the sense of cohesion in the felt body because, when conveyed in language, it can only ever fail

to fully represent the felt body. Language originates from outside the body and thereby can only

ever partially represent that experience. What is lost by the infant through the mirror stage, is a

sense of bodily cohesion. What is gained by child upon entry into language is the acquisition of

the facility to “stitch” the torn body back together (Loose, 2002, p. 182). Lacan’s understanding of

the mirror stage posited the body, the signifier (i.e. language) and the image of the body as three

distinct levels of experience, but it is the image, first presented to the infant from the outside, that

will be stitched together with new meaning across the lifespan. Lacan’s image of the body is thus

constructed.

1.3.4 The mirror-role of mother

The mirror-role of mother is a figurative idea that Winnicott (1967a/1971) similarly used to

describe the sense of psychological continuity that, in the optimal circumstances, emerges for the

infant in the context of his or her relationship with the primary carer. Winnicott’s description

inferred that the mother’s act of looking or gazing at her infant offers the infant the experience of

existing. He posited this as a foundational experience that establishes the sense of continuity and

cohesion that comes to be associated with one’s body.

Mothers who reflect back or respond appropriately to their infants, establish a “good-enough”

context for psychological development (Winnicott, 1953/1971, p. 11). Mothers who, for whatever
 21

reason, may fail to engage with their infant risk setting up a situation through which the infant

comes to apperceive their own existence without the benefit of a creative and figurative quality

provided by the mother’s gaze. “If the mother’s face is unresponsive, then a mirror is a thing to be

looked at but not to be looked into” (Winnicott 1967a/1971, p. 113).

The mirror-role of the mother provides the scenario in which the interaction between the

emergent body image and the conditions in the environment are temporally intertwined. The

sense of continuity that this scenario establishes was for Winnicott (1967a/1971), inseparable

from a sense of bodilyness associated with proprioception. Winnicott’s interpretation of bodily

continuity was associated with the capacity to apperceive the shape of one’s own existence,

which is both imaginatively created and physiologically enabled. From Lacan’s point of view, this

capacity is conceptualized as a capacity to stitch the outline of the body together. In Schilder’s
5
(1935/1978) terminology, this stitch work and apperception are brought together as the activity

of dynamic construction. This shift denotes Schilder’s interest in synaesthetic perception as a

primary force across the human lifespan.

1.3.5 Psychoanalytic researches on the body image

Anzieu’s (1989) text titled The Skin ego combined Freud’s (1923/1986; 1905/1986) descriptions

of the ego and its formation, together with Federn’s (1952) account of ego feeling, and

reinterpreted the ego in the context of the actual presence of the human body. The title of his text

indicates that Anzieu was largely concerned with the role that the skin plays as an interface or

boundary in the construction of the libidinous body, including its spatial organization, and in its

role as both container and contents in organizing that experience. He also addressed the role

that the skin plays in the communication required between mother and child, taking especial

5
Reber (1985) noted that the concept apperception dates back to Leibniz. “It refers to a final,
clear phase of perception where there is recognition, identification or comprehension of what has
been perceived” (1985, p. 49). Following Herbert, Reber further described it as a fundamental
process of acquiring knowledge. Reber also provided an interpretation given by Wundt that
referred to “the active mental process of selecting and structuring internal experience, the focus
of attention within the field of consciousness.” (p. 49)
 22

interest in the physiological potentiality of the skin and transposing that in order to explore the

skin’s role in the formation of object relations in normal and abnormal psychological development.

Anzieu’s (1989) description of the skin ego did not expand on Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory in

any way but he did assume, as Schilder did, that the body is constructed over time. He thus used

the same premise and through it, he organized a theoretical idea about what Schilder referred to

as the libidinous structure of the body image, from a metaphor pertaining to touch and the

envelope of the skin, rather than the movement and construction of the central nervous system.

The latter sections of Anzieu’s text presented actual case studies and as such, it is devoted to a

theoretical analysis of psychological disorders and psychosomatic illness.

Anzieu (1989) observed that Schilder’s (1935/1978) work touched upon a number of areas that

crossed over with that of Federn’s (1952). In particular he noted that each man was interested in

a more peripheral aspect of psychological experience than Anzieu himself, although he noted

that Schilder focused on unconscious representations while Federn explored preconscious

feelings. In sum, Anzieu’s work magnified and organized in fine detail what Schilder only

identified and described schematically as the libidinous structure of the body and thus took his

own questioning into areas beyond Schilder’s theory.

1.3.6 Schilder’s contribution to psychoanalytic ideas on the body image

As already indicated in Sections 1.1.1, 1.1.2, 1.2.1 and 1.2.3 above, Schilder’s (1935/1978) work

has been referred to as central to a psychoanalytic understanding of the body image. Tiemersma

(1989) attributed this centrality to Schilder’s transformation of Head’s neurological idea into a

psycho-physiological dynamic and entity, based upon his acknowledgement of Freud’s analyses

of the role of psychological forces underlying physical symptoms. Thus Schilder extended

Freud’s description of the bodily ego through the notion of dynamic construction.

Schilder (1935/1978) looked to psychoanalytic ideas as a means by which to understand why

some perceptual experience slips into the background of consciousness beyond awareness,
 23

while it may be simultaneously integrated into the central nervous system. His theory spells out

the physiological and psychological relationships he suspected were involved in the integration

and transformation of perception, the organization and development of apperception, and the

relative permanence that the sense of bodilyness, provided by the body image, proffers human

psychology. Schilder was deeply interested in the relationship between body and mind, and this

was influenced by his studies in both neurology and psychoanalysis. As a result, his theory

reflects the influence of each of these disciplines, but differs from each of them because his focus

was an organic-cum-psychic activity, dynamic construction, that permitted him to think about

change in the central nervous system and subjective experience as one singular event.

Schilder (1935/1978) identified Freud’s work as being invaluable to his understanding of human

psychology, but differentiated his perspective from that of Freud on one significant point relating

to the predominance given to the death instinct (or death drive) in Freud’s later writings. Schilder

(1935/1978) wrote:

I do not think that Freud’s basic attitude that our desires lead us back to a state of rest is a
true description of inner and outer experiences. I insist upon the constructive character of
the psychic forces and refuse to make the idea of regression the centre of a theory of
human behaviour. It seems to me, also that Freud has been inclined to neglect the
principles of emergent evolution, or, as I would prefer to say, of constructive evolution,
which leads to the creation of new units and configurations. (p. 9)

Schilder did not ignore the presence of destructive tendencies. For example, he emphasized their

effect, especially through anxiety, on the felt cohesion of the body image, but he did not place the

death instinct at the centre of his inquiry. Arguably, Schilder’s focus on dynamic construction

indicated his interest in the systemic nature of the central nervous system to build functional

patterns unique to the experience of each person, and how that constructive activity could be

observed in the body of the patient, as well as in their psychological structure. His theory of

dynamic construction is thus very like what Freud (1920/1986) identified as the life instinct or

Eros.

Freud (1920/1986) first described the life instinct in Beyond the pleasure principle. His description

derived from a biological metaphor of the nature of life at a cellular level. However, the

description he composed closer to his own death identified the life instinct with the mythological
 24

entity referred to as Eros or love, and transformed it into a psychological activity associated with

the binding and unifying of sensory experience or, what in psychoanalytic terms is referred to as

the libido. Freud (1940/1986) presented Eros as one half of a dichotomous pair, contrasting it

with what has since been translated as the death drive. He wrote:

After long hesitancies and vacillations we have decided to assume the existence of only
two basic instincts, Eros and the destructive instinct … The aim of the first is to establish
ever greater unities and to preserve them thus – in short, to bind together; the aim of the
second is, on the contrary, to undo connections and so to destroy things. (p. 379)

This characterization of the life instinct, or Eros, compares favorably with the activity Schilder

(1935/1978) called dynamic construction. Schilder’s dynamic construction, however, is

conceptually located at a more immediate point in the frontier between self and other, and is

recognizable in the domain of perception through the notion of apperception. Rather than

highlight the psychic representatives associated with apperception, as Freud (1940/1086) did in

setting his neurological studies aside, Schilder’s dynamic construction reasserted a dual interest

in the body as both a neurological entity and subjective, psychic experience. Schilder’s body

image is an ongoing process of construction that crosses three dimensions of experience. It is

also a theory of dynamic change in the systemic activity of the body, in the context of ill health

and everyday life.

Where Freud described the nature of the bodily ego and directed his attention to “the kernel of

the psyche” (Anzieu, 1989, p. 90), the concept of the body image has been a more peripheral

phenomenon in psychoanalytic theory as it has been elaborated over time. In development, it

serves a function in establishing a basis upon which the capacity for self-perception (the ego) is

established. It has been viewed as largely unconscious, but as persisting over time as both a

structure and a dynamic.

The psychoanalytic body image has a direct relationship to the development of human

psychology. The psychosexual stages involve age-specific challenges associated with social

expectations linking with the libidinous structure. The body image is the representation required

for thinking subjectively on bodily existence. It commemorates conscious and unconscious

experience and provides the continuity and stability of what we know to be our own existence.
 25

The body image is a peripheral structure in psychoanalytic theory, but is essential in an implied

way because it represents the body we come to understand as our own.

1.4 Psychoanalysis and neuroscience in conversation

It was described briefly above how Schilder (1935/1978) drew from his training in both neurology

and psychoanalysis, among other influences, to build the idea that he came to refer to as the

body image. More recent discussions in the discipline of neuro-psychoanalysis have begun to

explore the relationship between the central nervous system and what may be broadly identified

as mind. In this interdisciplinary conversation, there are questions being addressed about the

formation of ‘a mind’ that is also regarded as a function of the body. Like Schilder’s (1935/1978)

fascination with the relation between the mind and body, this interdisciplinary conversation brings

diverse studies into a closer relationship with each other. Questions concerning the role played

by the apperception of one’s bodily self in the formation of mind have also begun to emerge.

1.4.1 Where neuroscience and the question of mind converge

As noted previously, Gallagher and Meltzoff (1996) underlined the role played by perception

(specifically proprioception) in the organization and development of apperception associated with

the body image. Sheets-Johnstone (2002) recently broadened the scope of their discussion and

emphasized that the psychic entity supported most by proprioception and, she added tactile-

kinesthetic experience, pertains directly to the formation of what Freud (1923/1986) referred to as

the bodily ego.

In an earlier work, Sheets-Johnstone (2000) argued that the relationship between movement and

the development of the human, from infancy to adulthood, is ontogenetic. In other words, she

established an argument in which she described the human capacity for movement as being the

“primal animation” (p. 354) through which all other human development takes place. Movement,

she argued is the context within which development, including psychological development is
 26

constructed. Motility, she argued, links the kinetic, tactile-kinesthetic body to the acquisition of

skilled behavior and to the potentialities from which intellectual development emerges. Intellectual

development is thus founded upon the corporeal awareness instigated by one’s capacity for

motility and through the inter-corporeal awareness, especially that between the mother and

infant, wherein physical motility first acquires meaning.

Sheets-Johnstone (2000) characterized the structure of her argument through the notion she had

previously identified as “constructive phenomenology” (p. 344). The assumptions of that

constructive phenomenology did not, however, permit her to explore the constructive relationship

between the kinetic, tactile-kinesthetic body and the self-representations through which

psychological life emerges. Later comments by her have introduced the importance of the

psychological experience to her constructive phenomenology, but this has been enabled only

through the concept of the bodily ego as described by Freud (1923/1986). Bringing Freud’s bodily

ego into the centre of the discussion, Sheets-Johnstone (2002) later argued that the emergence

of mind is linked to the body by movement (kinetic experience), spatiality (tactile-kinesthetic

experience) and a sense of bodilyness (affective experience). She wrote:

If the ego is first and foremost a bodily ego, and if the self and the self representation are
substructures of the ego, then the first requisite is to understand in the most precise and
fullest sense what it means to say that the ego is first and foremost a bodily ego, in
essence, to spell out how the kinetic/tactile-kinesthetic/affective body is the foundation of
the ego. (p. 44)

The entity to which Sheets-Johnstone has referred has a theoretical relationship to the dynamic

body image described by Schilder (1935/1978), to the extent that both identify movement as the

medium through which the body image develops. Sheets-Johnstone (2000; 2002) thus

confirmed, but reconfigured what Schilder previously described as the basis upon which the body

image is constructed.

1.4.2 A neuro-psychoanalytic interpretation of the unconscious

Solms and Turnbull (2002) presented neuroanatomical information in such a way that it enabled

one to think about the psycho-physiological relationship between the central nervous system and
 27

a range of phenomena identified in Freudian psychoanalysis. These authors were most

interested in exploring how phenomena such as the unconscious and wish fulfillment in dreams

might be understood from the point of view of brain function. Their description thus encompassed

a layering of ideas on the function and structure of the brain and how that function might relate to

human consciousness, or what we refer to as mind. In particular, they presented an argument

that proposed that mind, or human consciousness, comes into formation.

Solms and Turnbull (2002) argued that human consciousness is largely unconscious, and is so

from the beginning of development. This, to put it simply, was demonstrated by the fact that the

proportion of brain activity required for conscious thought is only small compared with the multiple

layers of activity involved in the totality that can be referred to as human consciousness.

Subpersonal layers of brain activity associated with human consciousness do not present

themselves to conscious awareness automatically but, they argued, may become part of

conscious thought through a combination of introspection and language. Conscious thought they

argued, is “the mere perception of the mind’s actual processes” (p. 72) combined with the

conceptual hooks proffered by language. However, they noted that the perception involved in the

formation of mind does not bind together freely. Rather, they argued, it becomes unified or

“grounded” (p. 75) because of our increasing awareness of having an actual physical or visceral

body. This conscious experience provides a sense of oneself as a singularity, and is thus bound

to the increasing awareness of the body or what Schilder (1935/1978) referred to as the

construction of the body image. Conscious levels of mind emerge, thereby, with an increasing

awareness or self-knowledge of the subpersonal processes linked to that bodily self. The

unconscious, in these terms, is thus all that is yet to be observed by introspection or yet to be

contained by language.

1.5 Body image in the discipline of psychology

The third discipline to focus attention on the body image has been psychology. This has occurred

in both clinical and non-clinical settings, and has been largely independent of the theoretical

endeavors of neuroscience. In psychology, Schilder’s (1935/1978) ideas have been generally

 28

attributed their historical significance, but the discipline of psychology has departed from the

organization of his model to produce two other dominant approaches when thinking about the

body image. Tiemersma (1989) identified these two approaches as the psychodynamic model

and the structural-functional model.

The transformation within psychology of Schilder’s (1935/1978) dynamic model into two alternate

models has coincided with historical trends within the discipline itself. For example, the wider

application of statistical methods in psychological research in general has guided the

development of ideas associated with structural-functional ideas. Measurement scales have

thereby become widespread as research procedures in the discipline. Body image research has

taken great advantage of measurement techniques since the advent of the Body-Cathexis Scale,

created by Secord and Jourard (1953). The psychodynamic model, by comparison, has been far

less widespread. Its minor standing as a research model is in consonance with a general decline

in its dissemination within university undergraduate courses in psychology.

1.5.1 The psychodynamic perspective

Krueger (2002) summarized the psychodynamic perspective on the body image in psychology.

His short paper presented ideas that have a relationship to psychoanalytic descriptions, but

differed from them to the extent that he used different terminology. Krueger’s terminology

presented synchronic ideas but the organization of his description essentially derived from the

concepts described in Sections 1.3.1, 1.3.2 and 1.3.3 above. For example, Krueger (2002) did

not describe the mirror stage, the maternal gaze or the erogenous zones of the body in the

formation of the ego, but portrayed a structural and developmental picture of the stages in the

development of the body self, in which psychoanalytic ideas could be mapped. His perspective

interpreted the developmental achievements described within psychoanalytic theory into a model

of change that might be observed in any striving and healthy child.

The first stage Krueger (2002) described referred to the importance of proprioception for the

body-self and its function (in the context of ordinary care and feeding) in establishing a basis for
 29

self-representation. The second stage he associated with the role of the maternal mirror in

supporting the capacity to acquire a cognitive sense of one’s own body. This he suggested

establishes boundedness for the individual. The third stage he described corresponds with the

developmental process inaugurated by the mirror stage. Krueger suggested that the third stage

gives the child an integrated outline into which the experience of the inside and the outside of the

body can be thought about as whole. This last stage consolidates the early steps in cognitive

development and through it the ability for abstract thinking.

Krueger (2002) used these structural ideas to make psychoanalytic theory available to the

empiricist and positivist tradition within psychology. This enables the ‘dynamic’ in psychodynamic

to be integrated into psychological models without disrupting the synchronic assumptions it

maintains about the nature of mind. However, Krueger (2002) emphasized that body image does

not refer to “something that one either has or does not have, as if it were a fixed representation

that is either accurate or distorted” (Krueger, 2002, p. 33). He also pointed out that it is a

misconception that body image can be measured as though a fixed entity. “A body image is not

as static as the term image might imply” (2002, p. 34). This last comment implies that perhaps

Schilder’s (1935/1978) conceptualization of dynamic construction continues to have an influence

in the psychodynamic literature on the body image.

One of the most prolific research enterprises in the psychodynamic field was that conducted by

Fisher and Cleveland (1958/1967). Their text on the body image is largely a compilation and

analysis of data on the body image gleaned especially from the application of the Rorschach

Technique. It was noted above that Tiemersma (1989) recognized the work of Fisher and

Cleveland as a direct response to Freud’s (1905/1986) description of the erotogenic body in his

Three essays on the theory of sexuality. He noted also that Fisher and Cleveland drew inspiration

from Wundt (1896/1914) on the nature of psychological experience in relation to kinesthesia, and

from Schilder (1935/1978). Guimon (1997b) added that Fisher and Cleveland’s work also showed

the significant influence of other authors in the wider psychodynamic literature such as Jung

(1923/1977), Reich (1949) and Adler (1951).

 30

Fisher and Cleveland (1958/1967) developed the concept of the body image boundary and

devised a construct to psychometrically assess the extent to which the boundary of the body is

experienced as permeable or having a more enduring quality. The two dimensions that were

most important to the analysis of these experiences were the barrier and penetration scores.

These scores provided quantitative data for the assessment of the body boundary. The body

boundary construct was used to explore personality factors contributing to susceptibility in

psychosomatic illness and to assess a subject’s vulnerability in pressured social experiences

when measured by a galvanic skin response.

1.5.2 The structural-functional perspective

Structural-functional ideas are currently the most plentiful in the discipline of psychology and

represent the most widespread ideas in the study of the body image. The introductory remarks of

this chapter described how the discipline of psychology currently defines the body image as an

“internal representation of your own outer appearance” (Thompson et al., 1999, p. 4). This is

quite different from that described within both the neuroscientific and psychoanalytic literature,

and this contrast is central to the thesis developed in Chapter 3. The purpose of the discussion in

the present section, nevertheless is not to summarize all that has been explored by way of

structural-functional approaches, since such a task would involve a chapter of its own. Rather,

this section aims to describe the assumptions and techniques through which structural-functional

approaches generate knowledge about the body image.

The development of structural-functional ideas in psychology emerged as a consequence of a

6
philosophical movement in Western thinking, referred to as logical positivism , in which the study

of introspective experience was superceded by methods of inquiry originally preferred by the

natural sciences and the study of primates and other animals. In brief, structural-functionalism

can be thought of as a derivative of a belief wherein the psychologist-researcher claims to take

6
Logical positivism is described and critiqued in considerable detail in Section 3.2.
 31

the position of an objective and rational observer of behavior, from which to understand human

psychology.

Tiemersma (1989) described the structural-functional literature on the body image in terms of a

hierarchy of phenomena arranged according to typology and ordered according to their

differentiation and explicitness. Typologies are organized according to phenomena such as

thought, memory, movement or the sensory experiences of the subject. Tiemersma also

identified a separate category for phenomena associated with human social relations. A recent

handbook on theory, research and clinical practice on the body image (Pruzinsky & Cash, 2002)

exemplifies the focus of the structural-functional model. In that handbook the definition presented

in Section 1.1 above by Thompson et al. (1999), has informed the heart of almost every chapter.

Thus, the assumptions underlying the handbook with respect to the body image, referred largely

to typologies pertaining to conscious thought and memory or its dysfunction and affect. No

discussion within this text considered the relationship between movement and body image

construction, although athleticism in sport and professional dance were considered with respect

to their conditioning effect upon conscious thoughts, like the level of satisfaction held about one’s

appearance. Pruzinsky and Cash’s handbook thus conceptualized the body image largely as a

linear scale or continuum that can illuminate the relationship between the evaluations made

about one’s appearance with respect to environmental factors (i.e. familial and cultural),

biological factors (i.e. body mass index) and changes made to the body (i.e. illness or injury).

Pruzinsky and Cash’s (2002) handbook highlighted how versatile the construct of the body image

can be in understanding psychological wellbeing. However, the handbook also revealed how the

ideas it presented have little theoretical relationship to Schilder’s (1935/1978) conceptualization

or to the body schema, in the way described by Gallagher and Cole (1995/1998) in Section

1.2.2.1 above. Figure 1 below reproduces the way the structural-functional study of the body

image presented in that text maps the connections between the many domains through which

this construct is applied.

 32

Historical, Developmental Influences

Cultural Interpersonal Physical Personality

Socialization Experiences Characteristics Attributes

Body Image
Proximal Events and Processes Schemas and Attitudes
(Investment and Evaluation)

Appearance-
Schematic
Internal Dialogues Adjustive,
Processing
(Thoughts, Self-Regulatory
Interpretations, Body Image Strategies and
Conclusions, etc.) Emotions Behaviors

Activating
Events

Figure 1. A cognitive-behavioral model of body image development and experiences

(Cash, 2002, p. 39).

The structural-functional approach adopts an objectivist approach and takes a particular interest

in cognitive-behavioural phenomena. These phenomena have often been conceptualized as

hypothetical constructs that establish salience to patterns in behaviour, patterns in thinking or

patterns in the interaction of behaviour and thinking. Highly descriptive constructs like that of “the

drive for thinness” (Garner, Olmstead, & Polivy, 1983) have thus been generated. The structural-

functional approach has amassed an extensive resource of information on the body image

concerning a wide range of hypothetical constructs since the early 1960s, but as Tiemersma

(1989) pointed out, it has largely failed to integrate that information into a cohesive theory.

Tiemersma (1989) pointed out that the structural-functional research programs in psychology

have reinterpreted the dynamic and often unconscious body image, first defined by Schilder

(1935/1978), into a conscious representation of the body’s appearance. He added that this

representation also excludes implicit aspects of body experience required for the execution of

movement and…
 33

…is largely or wholly independent of the actual presence of the physical body. It specially
involves a ‘memory image’ of the body recalled, as it used to exist, or a ‘created image’ of
the body which never existed in the physical world. This created image of the body plays
its role in fantasies. (Tiemersma, 1989, p. 188)

Given the importance placed upon the motility of the body in the formation of the body image in

neuroscience, it is peculiar that the psychological construct can have validity in the discipline of

psychology independent of the actual presence of the moving body. Some psychological

research, by workers such as Adame, Radell, Johnson, and Cole (1991) and Lewis and Scannell

(1995) has examined the effect of human movement on the experience of the body image, but

overall the discipline has not considered the subjective experience of movement as a means

through which the body image is generated.

1.5.3 Criticism of the structural-functional approach

Tiemersma’s (1989) criticism of the structural-functional approach pointed out that its

methodological orientation has the potential to create what might be thought of as a solipsistic

understanding of the body image. He argued that the “operationalist” (p. 217) interpretation of the

body image, prioritized by that model, could easily conjure up knowledge simply on the basis that

the findings preferred by researchers would be inclined to fit comfortably with the methods used

in research. Commenting on the range and number of measures and constructs that have

emerged in the psychological literature on the body image over the past thirty to forty years, he

concluded that there appeared to be “little coherence between the methods” (p. 177). The

approximate classification of techniques used in the organization of that literature, he argued,

correspondingly belies the many contradictions between the findings established by so-called

comparable measures. The organization of that literature, thus, has disavowed its conceptual

disarray. Tiemersma (1989) noted also that:

So there are various sets of methods for examining different things, namely images or
ideas about dimensions, boundary, or orientation of one’s body, the cathexis of the body,
etc., each of which falls into many different operations. In a strict operationalist view this
diversity of methods would lead to an equal number of different definitions. Properly
speaking, the different sets of operations should each have their own name. In its extreme
form the number of concepts would become enormous. This multiplication would lead to an
unworkable situation and is, therefore, not acceptable. (p. 177)
 34

Further, it has also been argued by Barale (1997) that the discipline has forgotten that there is a

difference between the body image, as a concept required for empirical investigation (pertaining
7
to “Kõrper” ), and that pertaining to subjective experience (“Leib”). He noted that:

Today’s psychology often seems to have forgotten the body, the concrete body that we are
the body as presence (Leib). It neglects the bodily experience that is closely related with
the body/thing (Kõrper), with the body in any way objectivated [sic], but which is situated
on another level of complexity and demands, in order to be understood, concepts (such as
affect, drive, desire, intention, sense, communication, and relation) which belong to fields
different from those of biological mechanisms. (p. 167)

Barale (1997) identified that there is a distinction between the body image conceptualized for

psychological research and that experienced subjectively. The more subjective level of

experience is largely unconscious. It is also generative and thereby characteristic of the

potentiality within human psychology. It can be conceived of as the domain from which

psychosomatic illness as well as exceptional human abilities become manifest. But in

psychodynamic terms, it is always described as a continually modified psychic record, albeit

unconscious, on “the history of a reflection” (Barale, 1997, p. 168) that each person constructs of

their own experience as feeling and thinking beings. Psychodynamic ideas go even further, and

this perhaps is another point upon which the assumptions of positivist disciplines may be

disrupted, to suggest that the history of the reflection that each person constructs, is an activity

as well as a record that both organizes and is habituated within human physiology. The

conceptual divergence between the position described by Barale is not a new problem. The

failure of psychologists to differentiate between the object of their research and subjective

experience was identified as a problem by William James (1890/1952), who also described this

problem and forewarned psychologists of their vulnerability to error that he referred to as the

psychologist’s fallacy.

7
It is pertinent here to note that in German, Schilder’s native language, there are two words
equivalent to the English use of the word ‘body’. Leib refers to that inferred by the notion of
bodilyness in English. It is “the body as presence” (Barale, 1997, p. 167) and is used for concepts
such as ‘womb’ and ‘abdomen’ in English. It thereby carries the idea of a container or vessel.
Kõrper on the other hand neglects bodily experience and is associated directly with the body as a
solid mass and an objectified entity.
 35

1.5.3.1 The psychologist’s fallacy

8
James’ (1890/1952) description of the Psychologist’s fallacy introduces many of the same

conflicts and criticisms identified more recently by Rose (1997). James underscores the

limitations of ideas constructed by psychologists when investigating psychological experience,

and forewarns them, as empirical researchers, to be aware of the “snare” (p. 128) into which the

artificiality of those constructed ideas can lead empirical observation. Notably, James pointed out

that there is a distinction that must be observed between the object of research as an idea, and

the mental fact of that idea in subjective experience. This distinction he noted is shaped by limits

endemic to language itself and if overlooked by the psychologist could leave empirical study

vulnerable to overstating claims about the empirical world, that rightly may only correspond to

provisional ideas, rather than consciousness itself. “We cannot be too watchful against its subtly

corrupting influence” (p. 129), James suggested. Thus, Rose’s (1997) observation on the way

psychological terminology has distorted the social subject’s understanding of him or herself,

8
James (1890/1952) identified three sources of error in psychology. He wrote: “The first of them
arises from the misleading influence of speech, Language was originally made by men [sic] who
were not psychologists, and most men to-day employ almost exclusively the vocabulary of
outward things (p. 127)…. Empiricist writers are very fond of emphasizing one great set of
delusions which language inflicts on the mind. Whenever we have made a word, they say, to
denote a certain group of phenomena, we are prone to suppose a substantive entity existing
behind the phenomena, of which the word shall be the same. But the lack of a word quite as
often leads to the directly opposite error. We are then prone to suppose that no entity can be
there; so we come to overlook phenomena whose existence would be patent to us all, had we
only grown up to hear it familiarly recognized in speech. It is hard to focus our attention on the
nameless, and so there results a certain vacuousness in the descriptive parts of most
psychologies (p. 128)….
“The Psychologist’s fallacy.” The great snare of the psychologist is the confusion of his
own standpoint with that of the mental fact about which he is making his report…. For some of
the mischief, here too, language is to blame. The psychologist … stands outside of the mental
state he speaks of. Both itself and its object are objects for him. Now when it is a cognitive state
(percept, thought, concept, etc.), he ordinarily has no other way of naming it than as the thought,
percept, etc., of that object. He himself, meanwhile, knowing the self-same object in his way, gets
easily led to suppose that the thought, which is of it, knows it in the same way in which he knows
it, although this is often very far from being the case (p. 128)….
Another variety of the psychologist’s fallacy is the assumption that the mental state
studied must be conscious of itself as the psychologist is conscious of it. The mental state is
aware of itself only from within.… The psychologist, on the contrary is aware of it from without,
and knows its relations with all sorts of other things. What the thought sees is only its own object;
what the psychologist sees is the thought’s object, plus the thought itself, plus possibly the rest of
the world. We must be very careful therefore, in discussing a state of mind from the
psychologist’s point of view, to avoid foisting into its own ken matters that are only there for ours.
We must avoid substituting what we know the consciousness is, for what it is consciousness of,
and counting its outward, and so to speak physical, relations with other facts of the world, in
among the objects of which we set it down as aware.” (p. 129)
 36

implicates the paradigmatic assumptions constructed by the psychological researcher when

demarcating his or her object of research from the participant’s phenomenal experience. James’

observations about the psychologist’s fallacy thus provide a historical counterpoint for assessing

the limitations of the structural-functional approach, wherein the dichotomized model and

hypothetical constructs prevail.

1.5.3.2 Limitations of the dichotomized model

Sands (2000) noted that psychological researchers have reached a consensus in recognizing the

body image as a multidimensional construct, but he added that they typically dichotomize it into

two dimensions. Garner and Garfinkel (1981) designed the twofold organization of the construct

from “two disturbed aspects” (p. 264) they observed in patients with anorexia nervosa. The

central aim guiding the application of the dichotomized model in psychological research has been

to accurately refine the diagnostic criteria needed when differentiating the body image

disturbances underlying eating disorders.

One half of the dichotomized framework refers to a perceptual expression of the disturbance that

is defined according to the capacity to visually estimate one’s own body size, and is labeled

anthropometric size estimation. Anthropomorphic size estimation techniques numerically

represent a range of perceptual or visuo-spatial abilities via instruments such as light beams,

calipers, blindfold procedures, video images, photographs, distorted mirrors and figural scales.

The second refers to cognitive and affective ingredients in the evaluation of one’s appearance.

The cognitive, attitudinal and affective elements of the body image are represented by multiple

assessment tools used for recording participants’ self-perception. The convergent data between

the two aspects of the dichotomous model do not, however, provide evidence that the constructs

on which the tools are based are in anyway related to a global concept like the body image.

Nevertheless, the instruments and scales and the numerous variables to which they refer, have

been identified by key researchers in the field to be more stable than any global concept

pertaining to the body image.

 37

Illustrating this are comments by Thompson, et al. (1999) who suggested that the global

construct of the body image has no applicability for research at all, and is thus “almost useless

without specification of which particular [operational foci] are intended (p. 10).” Where subjective

affect was concerned, they contended that the concept of body image has become a “sponge

phrase absorbing many different connotations and meanings” (p. 7). To resolve this obstacle they

suggested that psychological research needs to apply “a continuum model” (p. 7) that would

account for variation in the affect felt by individuals according a measure of its intensity. This

continuum, they explained, would range “from none to extreme” (p. 7) with most individuals

identified by only a mild or moderate concern, distress or dissatisfaction with their appearance.

The organizational features of their continuum referred to the most salient and conscious aspects

of body image experience, and thus reduced phenomenal experience to a denotative marker on

either an interval or ratio scale of measurement.

Taking James’ (1890/1952) warning to heart, this continuum model and others like it have

revealed two common oversights in the quantitative analysis of the body image. Firstly, it must be

noted that Garner and Garfinkel’s (1981) dichotomized framework identified two disturbed

aspects of the body image in an abnormal population. However, Thompson, et al. (1999), Sands

(2000) and others such as Pruzinsky and Cash (2002), Grogan (1999) and Slade (1994)

sanctioned the application of such a framework to understand body image in normal populations.

Arguably, the dichotomous criteria can be targeted in normal populations, but James’ caution and

Rose’s (1997) criticism signaled the need to question whether such frameworks are appropriate

for populations outside the clinic. Broadly speaking, this is an oversight pertaining to

methodology.

The second oversight relates to the first, but refers more so to the relation between the

researcher and the researched, or the epistemology. Given that the dichotomized model has not

been generated in normal populations, it is thus likely to organize the psychological

understanding of individuals in normal populations according to the structure of a symptom. For

example, body dissatisfaction, a hypothetical construct derived in the assessment of eating

disorders, is but one construct in use in the psychological literature that has been applied to
 38

normal populations including children, adolescents and adults. One well-known example reported

by Rodin, Silberstein and Striegel-Moore (1985) identified the prevalence of body dissatisfaction

in a normal population of women and thus the authors identified the presence of “normative

discontent” in the population studied by their research. This oversight is a misrepresentation of

ordinary disaffection felt for bodily imperfections for a symptom, and flags the stage in the

research process where the psy disciplines begin to transform the psychological-self to which

Rose (1997) referred. In other words, transformations by psy disciplines begin at the point where

the measurement scale is chosen and therefore are established before any data is collected. This

example highlights also, that such transformations do not require a conspiratorial intent, but are

simply oversights because psychological researchers choose to leave out what they cannot

measure. In this case, that which has been left out was normal experience.

1.5.3.3 Hypothetical constructs

Structural-functional research and its dichotomous typology, defined according to perception and

affective experience, has facilitated the emergence of many hypothetical constructs. According to

Tiemersma (1989) hypothetical constructs are “non-observable” (p. 198), but must be inferred

from psychological patterns in thinking or patterns in behavior. According to Reber (1995)

hypothetical constructs are seldom constructed from unambiguous evidence, but since their

function in the discipline of psychology has primarily been to fine-tune the process of diagnosis,

they are deemed important to psychological practice and research. Overall they tend to be

organized according to one of the four scales of measurement in statistics, which are referred to

by the titles, nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio.

The scales of measurement permit the quantitative evaluation or categorization of any number of

salient phenomena. For example, global discontentment with one’s appearance has been framed

as “body dissatisfaction” (Garner, Olmstead, & Polivy, 1983), while global satisfaction with one’s

appearance has been identified through the concept of “body esteem” (Mendelson, Mendelson, &

White, 2001; Franzoi & Shields, 1984). Hypothetical constructs have been applied to a wide

range of propositions about the experience of the body image. They have shown to be efficacious
 39

in assessing explicit psychological patterns like those pertaining to the control of food intake

where “the drive for thinness” (Garner, Olmstead, & Polivy, 1983) has been used to aid the

differential diagnosis of eating disorders. Other hypothetical constructs cited in the literature have

included “affect related to physical appearance” (Reed, Thompson, Brannick & Sacco, 1991;

Brown, Cash & Mikulka, 1990) which assessed acute responses to the appearance of one’s

body. Similarly there has been devised an assessment scale to evaluate the withdrawal of

attention given to one’s appearance using the “body image avoidance” scale (Rosen, Srebnik,

Saltzberg and Wendt, 1991).

Hypothetical constructs have been used to serve diagnosis in psychology, but they present a

number of dilemmas for the development of theory. For example, Thompson, Penner and Altabe

(1990) summarized reports demonstrating poor convergent validity amongst the perceptual

constructs. They also reported that the convergence between perceptual measures and

subjective measures has been difficult to demonstrate. However these authors noted that

convergence between different subjective measures, particularly between body dissatisfaction

and attitudinal measures ranges between fair (a correlation above r = 0.3) and high (a correlation

above r = 0.6). R.M. Gardner (1996) has argued that the inconsistencies in studies using similar

procedures, might imply a sensitivity of the techniques used to situational specificities, or

alternatively, to an interaction between the perceptual and attitudinal aspects of the body image.

Convergent validity between hypothetical constructs used in psychological research has been

variable, but most instruments applied in psychological research have cited either good to

excellent test-retest reliability or sound internal consistency. So while hypothetical constructs

have been deemed essential to the classification of body image disturbances and demonstrate

adequate internal consistency and reliability, they often function without a unifying theoretical

proposition that can support their criterion validity. Thompson and van den Berg (2002) identified
 40

9
six instruments currently used in the assessment of body satisfaction and its related concepts,

as having both good to excellent test-retest reliability and internal consistency.

1.5.3.4 The structural-functional model from a broader critical context

The popularity of the structural-functional model in psychological research attracts critical

comment if only on the basis that the number of variables it has generated cannot, on the whole,

be found to have a relationship to one another. Neither has it been demonstrated that such

variables are linked to substantive theory, even though Sands (2000) reported that it has a

structural relationship to core ideas about “self-concept” (following Cooley, 1902/1983). Further,

few researchers in the field have questioned, as McKinley (2002) and Wolszon (1998) have, the

assumptions behind the widespread use of structural-functional ideas and their “normalizing

power” (McKinley, 2002, p. 60) on the construction of knowledge in psychology.

The psychological literature revealed that research in the discipline has preferred structural

models and synchronic data, at least since the mid-1950s. It also demonstrated that body image

and body schema are generally observed as independent entities. Tiemersma (1989) noted that

psychologists are more likely to refer to the body schema solely when they are referring to

knowledge implicit in movement and spatiality. While body image tends to be given attributes

associated with a subjective and intrapersonal frame of reference. The psychological literature

has not linked these two entities, organizationally or developmentally, as Gallagher and Cole

(1995/1998) and Gallagher and Meltzoff (1996) have. At least one example in the literature

waived the relation between the body schema and the actual body altogether by using the body

schema term to refer to a purely cognitive facility that, the authors suggested, integrates the

complex “cognitive, attitudinal, motivational, emotional and even behavioral machinery that is

9
(1) The Body Esteem Scale for Adolescents and Adults [Mendelsohn, Mendelsohn, & White,
2001], (2) Multidimensional Body-Self Relations Questionnaire Appearance Scale [Brown, Cash
& Mikulka, 1990], (3) Situational Inventory of Body-Image Dysphoria [Cash, 1994b], (4) Physical
Appearance State and Trait Anxiety Scale [Reed, Thompson, Brannick & Sacco, 1991], (5) Body
Image Avoidance Questionnaire [Rosen, Srebnik, Saltzberg & Wendt, 1991] and (6) the Attention
to Body Shape Scale [Beebe, 1995]. (Thompson & van den Berg (2002, pp. 144-148)
 41

associated with one’s body image” (Powell & Hendricks, 1999, p. 334). This overlapping of

terminology confuses the precision in psychological nomenclature, but it also indicated that

psychological researchers have yet to question the extent to which interdisciplinary ideas, from

neuroscience especially, might provide a reference point in theory development.

Schilder’s (1935/1978) dynamic theory is methodologically, epistemologically and ontologically

distinct from research carried out in the discipline of psychology even though most authors in the

field claim their research has a genealogical relationship to his theory or concept. For example,

Schilder did not differentiate, abstract or operationalize the multiple body experiences reported by

his patients from the meaning those experiences revealed within each case history, thus his

methodology was distinct from that generally applied in contemporary research in the discipline.

He underscored a correspondence in the relationship between mind and body (see Section 2.2.1

below) and thus his work reflected an ontology that was very holistic for its time and therefore

very different from what would be identified as the main body of psychological research on the

body image. Finally Schilder permitted both his neurological and psychoanalytic training to guide

the development of his theory and in so doing constructed an epistemology that permitted him to

observe synchronic criteria in the context of dynamic activity. As a consequence, his relationship

to his criterion was quite unconventional and in as much cannot be compared with constructs

adopted by the discipline of psychology. It is therefore curious how psychologists have been able

to claim that their work has anything to do with the body image genealogically, when arguably,

much of the psychological literature appears to be substantiated by either a misunderstanding or

a complete failure to read beyond the first line of Schilder’s text.

10
Obviously researchers recognize the a priori validity of the body image in psychological life, but

since the discipline has become theoretically lazy, it has become unclear whether the

psychological measures and constructs used in research truly demonstrate a criterion-related

validity on the body image. To return to comments by Thompson et al (1999), it might be

suggested that it is not body image that is a sponge phrase, but rather, in the effort to
 42

demonstrate consanguinity in psychological research, research psychologists have massaged

the dynamic and largely unconscious concept defined by Schilder in order to make it comply with

their individual research aims. These manipulations have got lost in the mists of time such that

researchers like Thompson et al, cannot now identify whether the body image is related to their

findings or not.

1.5.3.5 The body image and Critical Psychology

The study of the body image from the point of view of critical psychology does not occupy a

broad body of literature in the discipline of psychology, but does provide a counterpoint for

understanding the relationship between the socio-cultural discourses and psychological

experience. The work of Malson (1998) for example, although it concentrated largely upon

anorexia nervosa rather than the body image per se, emphasized the interrelationship between

socio-cultural discourses pertaining to sexed bodies and the formation and classification of that

condition as a psychiatric disorder. Her work assumed that the body image is an integral

achievement in the emergence of subjectivity, and as such, she devoted a substantial proportion

of her text to a description of how feminine subjectivity comes into formation, through an

interpretation of Lacanian psychoanalysis. In Lacanian psychoanalysis, it is important to

recognize that socio-cultural influences impacting upon in psychological development are always

couched as the effect of the socio-linguistic context. In other words, the psychological subject is

always firstly, a subject of language.

Malson’s (1998) text, The thin woman, is a deconstruction of the categorical classification of

anorexia nervosa as a psychiatric illness. Her argument examined the genealogical links between

anorexia nervosa and earlier practices of fasting and self-starvation, and scrutinized the

assumptions embedded in the assignment of this condition to psychiatric classification. She thus

compared the twentieth century classification of a psychiatric illness with historical practices of

10
Reber (1985) refers to a priori validity as “a kind of preliminary, intuitive estimate of the content
validity of a test. The degree to which the items on a test seem to have an intuitive, a priori
relationship to the behaviors that are assumed to be being tested” (p. 832).
 43

fasting and self-starvation, and demonstrated how the hegemonic role of the medical profession

gradually transformed the interpretation of those practices into an illness category, from ascetic

practice. Of anorexia nervosa she wrote: “What had once been construed as a miraculous ability

to exist without food was now explained as typical of ‘the hysteric’s’ resilient constitution”

(Malson, 1998, p. 63).

The two assumptions underlying Malson’s (1998) analysis that are important to highlight, pertain

to her interpretation of the socio-cultural conditions, or socio-linguistic conditions, in which

feminine subjectivity takes shape. Firstly, using psychoanalytic theory, she argued that one could

not assume that gender has a direct relationship to the body’s biology. She argued, rather, that

the sexed body does not, in itself, determine whether a male or female comes to self-identify as

masculine or feminine respectively, but rather that gender comes into formation through the role

of language and signification. In other words, masculinity and femininity are organized by the way

the psychological subject comes to position him or herself in relation to language. The conditions

established by language, as described by psychoanalysis, however, are particularly androcentric.

In particular she emphasized that the subjective “I” of language, and the primary position through

which subjectivity emerges, is always presumed masculine.

The second, was her description of the effort required in positioning oneself as a feminine

subject. Taking the masculine “I” as the central perspectival point within language for the

development of subjectivity, she described how feminine subjectivity must be constructed as a

negative position. This means that feminine subjectivity is not defined in relation to what is

characteristic of things feminine, but rather according to that which is deemed not to be

masculine. She concluded that it is thus unclear what relationship females may adopt in relation

to the social category ‘woman’, or what strategies they may enact in resisting a negatively

defined subject position. It is in this context that she examined the behaviors associated with

anorexia nervosa.

The approach presented by Malson (1998) did not critique the concept of the body image, but

deconstructed the position from which the practices and classification of symptoms associated
 44

with anorexia nervosa is currently understood. She, thus, examined the discursive net through

which psychiatric illness, anorexia nervosa and femininity are given meaning in the medical

profession. She also presented an argument asserting that psychiatric nosology cannot continue

simply to circumscribe categories of illness from the position of a value free and sexless science.

Rather she argued that, in the interpretation of psychological disorders, questions need to asked

as to the role that psychiatric illness may play in the construction of and anchoring of one’s

subjectivity.

1.5.4 Practical wisdom: The role of the body image in medical contexts

The conceptual structure of the body image discussed in this chapter comes together as a very

distinctive yet manifold idea in light of the three disciplines explored here. In health care settings,

that manifold idea contributes to the practical wisdom needed to guide the practice of

assessment and treatment. The shape of the manifold idea, however, differs from the structural-

functional interpretation of the body image widely held within the discipline of psychology. The

structural-functional concept and its dichotomous organization, however, do not influence or

inform practice in medical settings as directly as they do practice in psychology.

1.5.4.1 Psychiatric settings

Guimon (1997b) described a broad range of techniques used in the assessment of body

experience and body image, and his discussion was based upon his expertise in psychiatric

contexts. The techniques he discussed, he classified according to the formative structure of each.

For example, he suggested that body image assessment techniques are classified according to

aspects such as “…methodological orientation (objective and subjective questionnaires), the

focus of the data (diachronic and synchronic), the time perspective of the data and the ‘structure

of relevance’” (Guimon, p. 37-8). Further, he noted that techniques of assessment might also be

categorized according to the way they structure the relationship between the researcher and his

or her participant in the assessment. His review described interview techniques that induce
 45

subjective information such as “body biographies” and “body scenes” (p. 38). He also identified

scales used in diagnosis and designed for the assessment of individual cases. Further he

identified more distinctive scales used in population studies, and techniques designed for use as

standardized questionnaires and repertory grids. Semi-structured and open-ended interviews, he

added, have also been designed for use in clinical settings, and lastly, he described the

application of projective methods, drawings, modelling and projective tests in the evaluation of

the body image.

Guimon (1997b) presented these assessment techniques in the context of a very broad

theoretical and epistemological interpretation of the body image that included the identification of

conscious and unconscious experience. He associated the techniques in his review with the task

of advancing the accuracy of formulations made by practitioners, of the personal experiences

described by patients. His review certainly identified the task of assessment as that of identifying

abnormal experience, but his acknowledgement of the relationship between conscious and

unconscious experience couched the assessment task within a specific theoretical framework.

Guimon’s review was thus founded upon theoretical foundations and through them, he

demonstrated the relevance of theory to the assessment of body experience. Guimon’s

discussion highlights the interpretive function of theory when assessing the distinctions and

similarities between abnormal and normal experience. His review thereby underscored the role of

theory in practice, but more importantly, the relationship that theoretical assumptions have to the

internal validity of psychological assessment.

1.5.4.2 Nursing and rehabilitation settings

The practical wisdom of theory pertaining to the body image has been applied in nursing and

rehabilitation settings. Nursing practitioners in these settings do not conceptualize the body

image according to a dichotomous model, nor do they seek to diagnose it the body image in

terms of its relationship to psychological disturbances. Rather, these practitioners are interested

in the versatility of the body image concept for the management of patients in the recovery stages

of surgery or chronic illness. To do this they use the body image as a humanistic framework
 46

through which to conceive the patient’s bodily and psychological self-experience whilst in care.

For example Ebbeskog and Ekman (2001) described how the concept enabled health

practitioners to understand patients’ physical and psychological experience in the context of

illness, hospitalization and recovery, and thus highlighted how changes in self-experience may

result from medical interventions.

A range of authors in this field has explored the versatility of the concept for health practice and

allied treatments. Vamos (1993), for example, posited body image as a concept through which

patient experiences of chronic physical disorders can be monitored. Salter (1997) suggested a

similar idea, but supported its application in health settings in the context of an altered body.

Norris (1978) described body image like a tool through which the health care professional can

attribute interiority to the patient and, like Vamos, suggested that it provided a suitable framework

when reviewing expectations about treatment or recovery. She added that it also supported the

formulation of the patient’s history, physical assessment, examination and diagnosis, because it

offered a broad perspective through which to interpret body experience. Her perspective included

the social context and culture, maternal-infant development, sexual experience and sexual

health, and conditions afflicting the experience of the body such as aging, obesity and body

dysmorphic disorders.

In nursing and rehabilitation settings, body image is a lens through which health practitioners can

reflect on their clinical style. The practical wisdom that can be gleaned from this is that the actual

presence of the body is an integral part of the body image in normal psychological experience.

For example, the health practitioners in these examples conceptualized body image as a further

dimension on patients’ overall health status. The relationship between physical health and the

body image has not been represented in the structural-functional research within the discipline of

psychology, although it is the basis of psychoanalytic treatment. The exceptions to this,

presented Section 3.3.4 below, highlight the importance of this relationship, and of the

importance of theory, if the concept is to have the same versatility in psychology as it has in

medical settings.
 47

1.5.5 The psychological study of the body image: An overview

The concept of the body image originated in neurology, but has come to be studied empirically

across a range of disciplines. Figure 2 presents the genealogical relationships between the main

fields of theory and research described in this chapter.

NEUROLOGY AND THE POSTURAL

MODEL OF THE BODY

NEUROSCIENCE PSYCHOANALYSIS

SCHILDER'S (1935/1978) TRI-DIMENSIONAL AND DYNAMIC BODY IMAGE

Post-war era

The rise of operationalism and the measurement of

synchronic data in the discipline of psychology.

TOWARD

A dominance of psychometric research methods and

differential diagnoses in body image research.

CRITICAL CURRENT DAYPSYCHOLOGICAL TREATMENT

PSYCHOLOGY RESEARCH ON THE BODY IMAGE SETTINGS

STRUCTURAL- PSYCHODYNAMIC MODEL

FUNCTIONALIST MODEL

Figure 2. Representation of the historical-conceptual links in the study of the body image

It should be emphasized that the majority of body image research in the discipline of psychology

has emerged from settings that strive to differentiate the diagnostic criteria associated with body

image disturbances associated with eating disorders. The wide use of the dichotomized concept

described by Sands (2000) is the outcome of this endeavor. Psychological research on the body

image has not produced a cohesive theory, but data have been used to explore a tripartite

framework that brings a range of core ideas together. Gallagher and Cole (1995/1998) are
 48

neuroscientists and did not organize this framework for a psychological audience, but rather for

an interdisciplinary audience. The central idea in their framework is the notion of reflective

intentionality.

Reflective intentionality they suggested, can be structured according three modalities that they

identified from the combined psychological research by Cash and Brown (1987), Gardner and

Moncrieff (1988) and Powers, Schulman, Gleghorn and Prange (1987). The three modalities are:

1. the subject’s perceptual experience of his/her own body;

2. the subject’s conceptual understanding (including mythical and/or scientific knowledge)

of the body in general; and

3. the subject’s emotional attitude towards his/her own body.

The later two aspects do not always involve conscious awareness, but are maintained as a
set of beliefs or attitudes and in that sense form part of an intentional system. (p. 132)

The emphasis by Gallagher and Cole (1995/1998) upon reflective intentionality acknowledged

the place of phenomenal experience across these three modalities, whether it is conscious or

not. They assumed that it reflects a capacity to apprehend and organize an understanding of

oneself as a physical, emotional and social being, but they did not suggest anything about its

emergent nature or dynamic structure as it pertains to a feeling of bodilyness or a sense of

continuity with respect to time, space and causality. Such comments were more identifiable in the

work by Gallagher and Meltzoff (1996). Psychological research has been concerned with the

generation of information pertaining to a dichotomous model rather than a tripartite one. This

research model has been applied to a range of populations even though its structure was

developed for the differential diagnosis of disturbances in abnormal populations. The next

chapter presents Schilder’s (1935/1978) dynamic model, which it is suggested, provides a

cohesive framework through which phenomenal experience has theoretical integrity in its

relationship to time, space and causality.

 49

CHAPTER TWO

THE DYNAMIC BODY IMAGE

This chapter describes the detail within Schilder’s (1935/1978) dynamic and tri-dimensional

model of the body image. Tiemersma (1989) has pointed out that Schilder often used the term

body image in a variety of ways. Sometimes he used it to refer to a sense of spatiality. He also

used body image to refer to a conscious representation of the body, and at other times to less

conscious, prepersonal aspects of the body pertaining to motility and as the basis of phantom

phenomena. A review of Schilder’s work also presents what sometimes appears to be

indiscriminate use of the two concepts body schema and the image of the body, as though each

term may be substituted for the other, while at other times it has appeared that these concepts

represented separate ideas. This inconsistency can be explained in part by the fact that different

research and linguistic milieus across Europe preferred different words for the same

phenomenon. For example, it will be noted in Section 3.3.3 below how Wallon (1954/1984), a

psychologist from the French tradition, maintained the use of the term ‘schema’ for what were

clearly observations of the body image as described by Schilder. Schilder’s terminological

variability can thus be understood more easily when considered in the context of the multicultural

audience and research community with which he communicated.

One other aspect of Schilder’s (1935/1978) work that needs comment, is his use of the present

tense. Schilder wrote down many of his descriptions and the detail concerning his theory of

dynamic construction using the present tense. When reading his monograph these descriptions

are very alive, they jump out at the reader, and appear to have an immediacy that in many

respects relates to his interest in the phenomenal experience of his patients. As a consequence it

is very difficult to transform these ideas into the past tense without disrupting the vitality with

which he originally described them. It is therefore important to note that the description given in

this chapter of Schilder’s theory often repeats his story telling device. This occurs partly as a

result of the confusion that his choice of tense creates when attempting to paraphrase, but also
 50

because it was deemed important not to transform the vitality of the dynamic theory into a set of

propositions in decay.

2.1 Commentary on Schilder’s theory

As stated in Chapter one, the postural model of the body was originally described by Head and

Holmes (1911-12) who identified it as an observable entity. This entity was represented by a

spatial and postural capacity evident in the capacity to move without conscious attention to the

details around or of that movement. It referred to the accumulation of tactile and kinesthetic
1
information, but could also be supported by and distorted by visual information . Head and

Holmes’ postural model identified a plastic schema that enabled movement. Schilder (1935/1978)

extended the context of this plasticity to include the role that personality characteristics play in the

formation of the postural model. For Schilder, the postural model was not simply a physiological

presentation of a universal, organic structure, but included the transformations that each

individual’s personality brings to the character of movement and posture.

Tiemersma (1989) suggested that Schilder (1935/1978) considered body image and body

schema to be identical phenomena, but it seems at odds with his science for him to have used

two terms when one would suffice. Schilder recognized that his clinical observations did not

always fit with patients’ subjective experience of their own body, and this is especially the case in

disturbances such as autotopagnosia where patients can be unaware of and discontinue active

use of parts of their body. It can be argued therefore that Schilder’s terminology changed

because he needed more than one kind of concept when thinking about the phenomenon he

observed. Schilder used image therefore when referring to an intrapsychic dynamic and creation,

while at other times he used schema because the dynamic activity he wanted to describe needed

1
Schilder used the example of the Japanese Illusion to illustrate the extent to which vision can
confuse the postural model. The Japanese illusion is “when one crosses one elbow above the
other and intertwines the fingers and thumbs around the hands again…If the subject is now
ordered by pointing to move a specific finger, he is very often unable to do so” (Schilder,
1935/1978, p. 54).
 51

to be represented as a physiological entity. Body image and body schema were able to be

observed as the same entity, but needed to be represented by different terms to acknowledge the

different ways of thinking about what may have been happening. Each term represented a shift in

perspective, where the former identified the idiographic information, or subjective experience,

while the latter marked the nomothetic or objective data.

The distinction defined in neuroscience between body schema and body image was discussed in

the previous chapter. The remarks here do not attempt to undercut those comments, but aim to

establish the basis upon which the interpretation of Schilder’s (1935/1978) work has been made.

The recent interpretations do not fit precisely with the terminology chosen by Schilder and it is

important to suspend those qualified ideas when exploring Schilder’s theory. Current day

neuroscientific literature has added to the confusion also by continuing to mingle the meanings of

the terms. For example, Chapter one described how Gallagher and Cole (1995/1998) were at

pains to distinguish the terms body schema and body image, while in Section 1.2.2 it was noted

also that Berlucchi and Aglioti (1997) presented a position in which no distinction was underlined.

While Schilder might not have been rigorous in making the distinction between body schema and

body image, a rigorous use of the distinction provides a more illuminating reading of his work.

2.2 Introduction to the constructive energies of the psyche

The subheading to Schilder’s (1935/1978) text, “studies in the constructive energies of the

psyche” immediately introduced his dynamic idea. The place and prominence of dynamic

construction, also referred to by him as structuralization, derived from three sources. The prime

influence for Schilder was his neurological training, which he combined with his later training in

psychoanalysis. These two discourses forced him to consider the question of the relation

between mind and body. The third theoretical resource guiding his ideas derived from the unique

transformations he made to the German Gestalt psychology of his day.

 52

2.2.1 Schilder’s interest in the mind-body relationship

Schilder’s (1935/1978) study of the body image brought together a number of diverse points of

view on the body and the study of body experience. The shape of this dynamic framework was

predicated by one important assumption he made concerning the relation he observed between

organic and psychological phenomena:

[In Korperschema (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 [the] organism could and should be
incorporated in a psychological doctrine which sees life and personality as a unit” … 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. (p. 7)

Schilder (1935/1978) was deeply interested in the difficult topic of the relation between the mind

and body. The dynamic framework presented in his monograph was an attempt to explore the

mutual relation between the organic and psychological disorders of the central nervous system.

When refining these remarks, Schilder noted also that both the organic and psychological

disorders of the central nervous system can be understood using neurological principles, but he

suggested that they differ because they are organized according to different laws. This point was

highlighted in an excerpt from Schilder’s text in Section 1.2. In that excerpt, the function and

structure of the central nervous system were differentiated, although Schilder linked them

according to the effect each have on the performance of the central nervous system.

Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory thereby followed his observations that the central nervous system

had the capacity to be modified by psychic life. His theory of dynamic construction was built upon

that, and thereby on the assumption that what goes on in psychic life will shape the way the

central nervous system changes over time:

It may be asked whether the implication is that the physiological level with no reflection into
the consciousness is really the basic one from which the other [levels of body experience]
originate. I think that such an idea would be totally wrong. It is generally accepted that
activities of organisms are primarily psychic activities… I do not think, therefore that the
first level [i.e. the physiological level] is in any way prior to the second, third or fourth. If one
 53

wants to make a construction, it is certainly simpler to derive the physiological function

from the psychic function than the reverse. (p. 295-6)

His theory reminds the reader that he considered psychic life as the medium through which the

shape and pattern of functional disorders of the central nervous system come together,

constituting the primary phenomenon shaping our capacity to function in everyday life.

For Schilder (1935/1978), psychic life was a highly specific idea. Using his knowledge of

neurology and psychoanalysis, he constructed the proposition that it emerged within three

dimensions of self-experience. He described this emergence as a dynamic relation that, he

proposed, existed between our physiology, the libidinous structure of the body image, and our

perceived place in social world. Of psychic life he stated that:

…all that goes on in the body belongs to the psycho-physiological sphere... The nervous
system in itself is built up in levels of different integration. The higher levels of these
integrations become more closely related to the psychic layers and show an increasing
similarity to the mechanisms of the psychic sphere [or unconscious]. (p. 292)

Schilder implied that psychic life was fundamentally an organic system. This idea was

complemented by his interest in psychoanalysis, wherein functional changes can be represented

as psychic experience and expressed through language (Solms & Turnbull, 2002).

It is noteworthy that Tiemersma (1989) emphasized Schilder’s interest in the dynamic aspects of

neuropsychology and his ideas on the dynamic activity. Further Tiemersma commented that

Schilder published several decades before the work of Luria (1973), who also demonstrated an

interest in an active and dynamic model of the brain. Integrative neuroscience of the current era

has likewise proposed that adaptive brain dynamics infer that the mind is organized according to

the “creative construction” of past and present perceptual experience (Freeman, 2000, p. 168).

2.2.2 The gestalt idea

The influence of Gestalt theory helped Schilder (1935/1978) to refine the notion of dynamic

construction, but he did not propose that construction ever meant a final or completed process as

Bullock and Trombley (1999) have suggested. Instead, Schilder consistently described an
 54

organic-cum-dynamic activity that constructs forms from perceptual experience, but that these

forms continually dissipate because of the continual flow of perceptual activity. Schilder’s

constructive idea, however, differed from the ideas of his contemporaries in Gestalt psychology,

as indicated in the following passages:

We expand and we contract the postural model of the body; we take parts away and we
add parts; we rebuild it, we melt the details in; we create new details; we do this with our
body and with the expression of the body itself. We experiment continually with it. (p. 210)

…One should emphasize the continual activity, the trying out. One may speak of growth
and passing of shapes, ‘gestalten’. But here again one should be aware that one is not
dealing with automatic development but with a tendency of the constructive life energy. It is
a construction and destruction connected with the needs, strivings, and energies of the
total personality. It is clear that we are far removed from the classical gestalt psychology in
which there is no room for spontaneity guided by experience and for attitudes towards the
world. (p. 211)

Later, in his concluding remarks, he added:

…The conception of gestalt theory is too static. It neglects the dynamic factors which we
can only understand in connection with the actual personality. This study has not, however,
been undertaken to gather material for or against the gestalt theory; its aims are not critical
but constructive. I wanted to know how human beings arrive at a knowledge of their own
body…. (p. 290)

The idea that the body image is knowledge we arrive at, is an idea in consonance with Freud, as

remarked in Section 1.4.1, and the point where Schilder departed from Gestalt theory. He

emphasized the notion of continual change and brought the activity of perception and the

capacity for apperception into a dynamic relationship. His stress on perception and synaesthetic

perception, in particular, located his work more closely with neuroscientific ideas on the body and

is the point at which his theory diverged also from psychoanalytic theory.

2.2.3 The philosophical structure of Schilder’s model

Schilder’s (1935/1978) concern with the activity underlying apperception, that is, its tri-

dimensional structure through the notion of the body image and its dynamic activity, has a

philosophical antecedent not noted by Schilder in his 1935 text, but inferred and extrapolated by

Tiemersma (1989) in his extensive and interdisciplinary account of the phenomenon. In this

regard, it is pertinent to mention the phenomenology of Brentano.

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McCall (1983) captured the nature of Brentano’s (1874/1973) ideas by comparing them to that of

Wundt. He wrote:

Wundt was primarily concerned with the content of our ideas, and though he accorded
special status to the intellectual activity of apperception (following Kant and Herbert), his
principal interest was in the quality contained in the idea (i.e., its qualitative content). Thus
when Wundt examined the perception of red, it was to the “idea of red” that he turned, a
content different from the “idea of green” or the “idea of middle C”. Brentano, on the other
hand, wanted to stress above all the activity of sensory perception, not the image or idea of
red or middle C, but the act of seeing red or hearing middle C (p. 36).… For Brentano it is
thus the mental phenomena that are the true object of psychology…. Brentano strove most
vigorously to remove the stigma of passivity from the human psyche.… To Brentano…the
idea (Vorstellung) is the act of apprehending,…. (p. 38)

Schilder’s (1935/1978) characterization of perception thus fitted within a particular interpretation

of the Aristotelian tradition that McCall (1983) identified as having been passed down through the

writings of Aquinas. Schilder, however, did not comment on the influence of phenomenology in

his text, but did underline the influence of Freud. His omission in this regard can be attributed to

his interpretation of the relationship between mind and body. In Section 2.2.1 above, it was noted

that the organic and psychological disorders of the central nervous system were each interpreted

by Schilder according to neurological principles, but that each kind of phenomenon needed to be

comprehended as an expression of the different laws organizing them. Hence, Schilder’s

distinction between mind and body was not entirely in the vein of the phenomenologists who, as

Margolis (1984, p. 6) noted, identify and differentiate the mental or the activity of mind as distinct

from body by way of the concept of “intentionality”. Rather, Schilder was an observer of the way

the construction of mind expressed itself throughout the body, and in this regard he associated

himself with the psychodynamic orientation described first by Freud.

Having underlined Schilder’s position with respect to the mind-body question it is useful,

however, for his tripartite framework to be approached from a dual-aspect monist position. While

this may appear to be a contradiction in terms, it is certainly an efficient way to understand how

the different laws organizing experience may be conceptualized, and addresses the fact that he

was able to refer to knowledge about psychological experience from both clinical neurology and

psychoanalysis. Dual-aspect monism is a philosophical approach attributed to the work of

Spinoza that claims that mind and body are essentially the same thing, but that they simply
 56

appear to be separate because each is apprehended from a separate point of view. This dual

perspective was exemplified by Solms and Turnbull (2002) in the following:

When I perceive myself externally (in the mirror for example) and internally (through
introspection), I am perceiving the same thing in two different ways (as a body and a mind,
respectively). This distinction between body and mind is therefore an artifact of perception.
My external perception apparatus sees me (my body) as a physical entity, and my internal
perceptual apparatus feels me (my self) as a mental entity. These two things are one and
the same thing…[I] perceive myself from two different viewpoints simultaneously. This
problem does not arrive when we observe other things. (p. 56)

Schilder’s (1935/1978) dual perspective was established through his training in both neurology

and the psychoanalysis. The psychoanalytic training proffered a framework through which to

observe the structure of subjective experience, through the data it locates in language or speech.

This perspective enabled him to acknowledge the body image as a psychological entity, while his

neuroscientific knowledge provided him with an understanding of subjective experience as an

effect of the subpersonal processes from which human psychological life arises. The advantage

of reading Schilder from the point of view of dual-aspect monism is that it illuminates why

Schilder described the body image according to three dimensions. It also supports Schilder’s

assertion that the body and mind are phenomenologically indivisible, but enables the reader to

accept the way he separated them as dimensions and attributed equal importance to the role of

the cultural context.

2.3 The dynamic body image

The landmark definition of the body image put forward by Schilder (1935/1978), presented in

Section 1.1.1, suggested that the body image develops from many levels of perception.

Specifically, it develops through self-referential impressions supported by proprioception, through

the interoceptive and exteroceptive impressions associated with the five senses, and through

visceral sensation. Schilder argued that these perceptual impressions are transformed into

something manifold, but that the manifold experience associated with having a body derives from

much more than the sum of perception or from representation alone. His interpretation of how a

sense of unity is constructed, involved the idea that there was continual interaction between

unconscious life and dynamic construction that was mediated by perception. Schilder’s
 57

interpretation of unconscious life differed from what Freud (1915/1986) had previously referred to

as the Unconscious. Schilder thus referred to the notion of the “the sphere’” (p. 249), which he

suggested referred to the “processes which go on in the background of our minds” (p. 175) or, as

Talvitie and Ihanus (2003, p. 133) have suggested “what happens unconsciously”. These

processes create the image of what we know as our own body through dynamic activity.

Psychologist researchers have at times been open to the complexity in Schilder’s (1935/1978)

theory. For example, Shontz (1969) noted that the definition of the body image Schilder

presented in his opening paragraph, was much more than simply an internal representation of

one’s appearance:

Indeed the picture of the body seems to be a variety of things all at once. Although it is
described as being ‘mental’, it is probably not purely so, for the body image is said to have
its origins in somatic states and events which, under certain conditions, alter the body or
affect it directly. Whether the body image is mental or somatic or both, it is clear the body
image is both a part of the ego and something to which the ego reacts; it is the subject as
well as the object of mental activity… Like the body schemata…the body image is structure
as well as process. (p. 170)

Ironically, one of the more popular contributions made by Shontz in this field of research was a

model of the body image that now represents the antecedent of the dichotomous model used in

psychology in the current era. In spite of the way Shontz’ (1969) ideas have been interpreted

within the discipline of psychology, he himself conceptualized Schilder’s (p. 11) “picture of our

own body” as incorporating all levels of human consciousness. This quality in Shontz’ work has

been overlooked in the discipline of psychology.

2.3.1 The tri-dimensional idea

Schilder’s (1935/1978) body image is tri-dimensional. It was developed from a neurological entity

described originally by Head and Holmes (1911-12) but, like Freud’s (1923/1986) bodily ego,

described in Section 1.3.1, it was also attributed with qualities reflecting intrapsychic experience

in addition to the more observable physiological capacities. This tri-dimensional structure

reflected physiological experience, intrapsychic experience but added to these two the role of

what Schilder referred to as the sociological dimension of body experience. This tripartite
 58

organization has a structural correspondence with Lacan’s three registers and, as Evans (1996)

noted, the real, imaginary and symbolic first emerged in Lacan’s work one year after the

publication of Schilder’s text. The structural similarity between Schilder’s three dimensions and

Lacan’s three registers is germane.

Schilder’s (1935/1978) first dimension is referred to as the physiological basis of the body image.

Broadly speaking this dimension is associated with its organic structure. Taking a more

contemporary view, this dimension has a similar organization to what has been represented in

the neurological literature more recently as the “virtual body” (Solms & Turnbull, 2002, p. 90).

This dimension was inferred by Schilder according to universal laws and clinical observations on

the function and structure of the central nervous system.

The libidinous structure of the body image, by comparison, pertained to intrapsychic experience

in the context of libidinous relationships. The libidinous structure encompassed the felt reality of

the body as the medium through which those relationships are organized. This dimension does

not exclude physiological experience. However, Schilder (1935/1978) characterized it as a

dynamically organized experience of the body in context of the web of sensitivities mapped onto

it throughout life, but largely in the early years of development. The libidinous structure thus

underlined the influence that our object world has on the way the body image is organized.

The third dimension, the sociology of the body, referred to the influence that cultural ideas have

on the image of the body. This dimension assumed that different societies conceptualize bodies

in different ways, and that each society holds specified ideas about the relationship between the

body and intrapsychic experience. Every society thus has unique values pertaining to the status

of the sexed body. Schilder (1935/1978) did not explore the impact of the sociology of the body in

much detail. Least of all did he describe the relationship between biological sex and the sociology

of the body image, which has been explored by authors such as Butler (1990), in recent times.

Schilder was much more interested in dynamic activity.

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2.3.2 Dynamic construction

Schilder’s (1935/1978) understanding of dynamic construction is that of a balancing act where

constructive and destructive tendencies are an indivisible pair. The activity of construction is a

continual effort to test out “what parts fit the plan and fit the whole” (p. 286). Schilder wrote:

In the phases of construction and destruction, two principal human tendencies come out.
One is the tendency to crystallize units, to secure points of rest, definiteness, and absence
of change. The other is the tendency to obtain a continual flow, a continuous change… We
have conceived the passing and the stabile as phases in creative construction. (p. 211)

Schilder’s dynamic construction is the effort or work involved in maintaining the sense of

bodilyness or continuity, later described by Federn (1952). Dynamic construction aims to capture

form, but that form dissipates through the continual activity of perception. Figure 3 is a visual

representation of the temporal organization of dynamic construction between continuous flow and

the secure points of rest.

Continuous flow/change across time

Secure points of rest

Figure 3. Visual representation of the temporal organization of dynamic construction of

the body image.

The centrality Schilder attributed to dynamic construction means that he never fully differentiated

body image construction in one dimension from its activity in the others. Each dimension always

played a part in the construction of the other dimensions, although he identified each as unique

contexts for self-perception. In Section 1.3.4 it was noted that the work of dynamic construction

could be understood as the stitch work bringing the experience of the body together. It was also

noted there that this activity corresponds with what in psychology is referred to as apperception.

Thus dynamic construction not only represents activity, but is also the comprehension and

awareness of changes in the experience of the image. Thus dynamic construction must be

recognized as a generative activity wherein insight is both the outcome and the inception of that

constructive activity. This approach meant that Schilder differentiated his point of view from the
 60

behaviorism of J. B. Watson (1913) as well as from the German tradition of Gestalt psychology.

He underlined that he felt those approaches were extremist positions that dislodge psychic

activity from its physiological context.

2.3.3 The active process

One does not really own the postural model of the body which is necessary for the start of
any movement. One has to gain it by an active process which consists in bringing new
parts of reality into the reach of the active mind. The final appearance, the gestalt, is
therefore the result of an inner activity and of action. (Schilder, 1935/1978, p. 56)

The active process in the dynamic construction of the body image was characterized by Schilder

(1935/1978) as a continual flow. He suggested that it was initiated and built up through bodily

movement but correspondingly, he noted that movement cannot begin without the effort

accumulated from the dynamically organized body image. Schilder characterized the active

process, like perception itself, as continual flux such that the character of the body image was

captured first and foremost as a process. He wrote:

The image of the body is not a static phenomenon from the physiological point of view. It is
acquired, and built-up, and gets its structure by continual contact with the world. It is not a
structure but a structuralization in which continual changes take place, and all these
changes have relations to motility and to actions in the outside world. (p. 174)

The active process does not present itself to consciousness, but evidence of it is observable

through the experience of change, or the secure points of rest that emerge from the process of

change. The self-experience of the body, according to Schilder, is thereby subject to flux, but is

potentially coordinated into a stable feeling of bodilyness through the effort of dynamic

construction. Disturbances of the body image or in the perception of the body indicate disruption

to this process. This process was interpreted by Schilder to take place across all three

dimensions of the body image.

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2.4 The physiological basis of the body image

Schilder (1935/1978) described the first dimension of the body image as the physiological basis

of the body image. His observations led him to theorize on the effect of psychic activity in the

development of functional neuropathology. The model Schilder used in order to frame the

physiological basis of the body image was the postural model of the body (Head & Holmes, 1911-

12). However, according to Schilder the postural model was not simply the outcome of an organic

entity, but had characteristics of the personality at the level of body movement, which included

the physiological limits of the body and the disposition of the individual. Schilder’s postural model

of the body was a physiological and psychological entity, built up from the experience of

movement and spatiality in the context of psychic development. It is not a stable entity from a

physiological perspective, but rather is transformed by continual experience. In spite of this

Schilder also noted that the body image is experienced as having continuity over time.

Each of the three dimensions of the body image can be thought of as a separate context through

which to think about the body image. The physiological dimension thus captured the influences

that the physiology of the body contributes to the body image. It included visceral experience and

experience of movement and spatiality in establishing a sense of bodilyness. Understanding the

physiological dimension involves an appreciation of proposals concerning interoceptive and

exteroceptive perception as synaesthetic experiences, and physical movement as a basis for the

establishment of the body image.

2.4.1 Perception is synaesthetic

Schilder (1935/1978) stressed that the nature of perception was synaesthetic. Synaesthetic

perception suggests that the action of perception is never confined to one sensory modality, but

is a process in which all modes of perception contribute to a whole experience at any point in

time. Schilder wrote:

This means that there does not exist any primary isolation between the different senses.
The isolation is secondary. We perceive and we may with some difficulty decide that one
 62

part of the perception is based upon the optic impressions. The synaesthesia, therefore, is
the normal situation. The isolated sensation is the product of an analysis. In the scheme of
the body tactile-kinaesthetic and optic impulses can only be separated from each other by
artificial methods. What we have studied is the change in the unity of the postural model of
the body by change in the sensation of the tactile and optic sphere. The nervous system
acts as a unit according to the total situation. The unit of perception is the object which
presents itself through the senses and through all the senses. Perception is synaesthetic.
There is no question that the body presents itself to all senses. (p. 38-9)

In other words, synaesthetic perception implies that we apprehend the world and our own

existence through all our senses, and that the process by which we do this is central to the nature

of both perception and the body image. Schilder did not discount that each mode of perception is

supported by a differentiated system at the level of the organic structure, but he pointed out that

our subjective experience of that perception is synaesthetic, and that any differentiation between

the senses from a psychological point of view is always the result of intellectual abstraction.

2.4.1.1 The phantom limb: A phenomenon of synaesthetic perception

Schilder’s (1935/1978) discussion of phantom limb phenomena brought together his interests in

the neurological basis for and the psychological implications of body experience. In his

introductory remarks on the topic, he immediately differentiated his understanding of phantom

phenomena from what was, and is often still, conceptualized only at the level of physiology and

sensation. In contrast, he suggested that all phantom experience is psychological in origin even

though it has an organic cause. This psychological origin, he suggested, influences the multiple

effects associated with the loss of a limb described in Section 1.2.2.1.

Schilder (1935/1978) did not ignore the structural changes in the body’s physiology that

accompany the loss of a limb, but he placed great emphasis upon “emotional forces” (p. 67).

These forces record the possibility that phantoms are “the expression of a difficulty in adaptation

to a sudden defect” (p. 68). He also emphasized that there were almost always optic images

associated with the phantom limb, and that these represented the constructive activity producing

the variations associated with each individual’s phantom experience.

 63

Thus, Schilder (1935/1978) posited the phantom limb as a combined effect of physiology and

psychology. He suggested that after the amputation of a limb, synaesthetic perception drew on

the cortical record or the “kinaesthetic melody of movement” (p. 69) to reinstate the original

postural model rather than new information about the changed kinesthetic system. This tendency,

he suggested, indicated that physiological self-experience was never far removed from the

psychological, but is organized through phantasmic experience. He even went so far as to

propose that the body we come to understand as our own, (that is, what he described as the

body image), was made available to consciousness because it is also a phantom or at the very

least, a phantasmic experience constantly mediated by perceptual impressions. He stated:

Vestibular experiments and observations of amputated people have shown that every body
contains in itself a phantom (perhaps the body itself is a phantom) in addition. It is obvious
that the phantom character of one’s own body will come to a still clearer expression in
dreams, which, like phantasies, show a particular variability. (p. 297)

The phantom limb is a phenomenon caught at the intersection of what is the normal experience

of the physiological dimension and the libidinous structure of the body image. The physiological

effects of an amputation produce sensation, but the phantasmic experience of our constructed

body image, or phantom, is a firmer record, according to Schilder, because it not only maintains

our sense of bodily continuity, but through the libidinous dimension, is connected to the

experience of psychological cohesion.

2.4.1.2 Autoscopy

Autoscopy refers to the ability to imagine the sight of one’s body and self at a distance as a visual

object or idea. To do this:

…we create a mental point of observation opposite ourselves and outside ourselves and
observe ourselves as if we were observing another person. (Schilder, 1935/1978, p. 84)

This ability is made available via synaesthetic perception, but its character is made possible due

to the sophistication of the human cortex to reconstruct a visual record of one’s own appearance

and body schema at will. The picture requires synaesthetic perception and memory, but as

Schilder (1935/1978) argued, it is not plastic like the body image because we simply cannot

imagine a visual representation of our own body any differently from the way we visually imagine
 64

other tangible objects. He thereby referred to the effect produced by autoscopy as the “spiritual

eye” (p. 84) or “immaterial eye’” (p. 85). He elaborated:

[This ‘eye’ ] looks through the body, which is in some way empty, yet it does not see the
inside of the body, but the surface. This immaterial eye wanders according to the point of
the surface that has to be observed. The impression of emptiness in the body which occurs
in these experiments is very queer. (p. 84)

The eye looks over the body from an imagined position outside the body. It does not experience

the body as a whole but produces a picture from memory. This picture represents and visually

locates the spatial relations between the parts of the body accurately. It is a cognitive device for

spatial and representational associations, but it is not the same as the body image which is “a

mental picture as well as perception” (p. 106). It is built upon the immediate and synaesthetic

experience of the phenomenal experience. The immaterial eye does not provide a sense of

continuity to bodily experience, but is a creation of thought that is enabled because we have a

body image. Schilder’s description of the spiritual eye reiterated something of what Tiemersma

(1989, p. 188) referred to in Section 1.4.2 above, as the absence of “the actual presence of the

physical body” in the memory image used in psychological study of the body image.

2.4.1.3 Pain

In Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory pain is identified as being the outcome of subjective

interpretations influenced by “the reaction of the total personality” (p. 98-9). This subjective

interpretation, he noted, is “a unified act” that follows a “general scheme” (p. 99), that involves a

particular sequence. First comes the perceptual experience followed by the sensation attributed

to it. Sensation, or perhaps the pain, is next interpreted in the context of the body as a whole thus

involving the body image. Finally, pain is interpreted in the context of the total personality. The

subjective experience of pain thus always suggests contextual referents, namely the body image

and the personality, through which pain is interpreted. Schilder identified pain as psycho-

physiological experience interpreted as uncomfortable sensation.

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2.4.2 Movement

According to Schilder (1935/1978), the experience of unity afforded by the body image has a

direct relationship to our capacity for bodily movement. He noted that “we do not feel our body so

much when it is at rest, but we get a clearer perception of it when it moves…” (p. 87).

Movement is a great uniting factor between the different parts of the body. By movement
we come into a definite relation with the outside world and to objects, and only in contact
with this outside world are we able to correlate the diverse impressions concerning our
own body. The knowledge of our own body is to a large extent dependent upon our action.
(p. 112-13)

Schilder recognized movement as being more than the effect of motor coordination. Every

movement has an anticipatory plan through which action is deployed. Action does not begin

spontaneously, nor is it mindless, but the point of departure in every movement requires an

anticipatory plan and each plan requires that a point in the body is found in order to begin and

execute that movement.

2.4.2.1 The anticipatory plan

Schilder’s (1935/1978) thoughts about movement and the initiation of movement were subtended

by the idea he referred to as the anticipatory plan.

…[E]very action is based on an anticipatory plan. This anticipatory plan has a specific
structure. It not only contains the final aim, but also comprises the insight into the single
actions which are necessary for the actualization of the plan…. (p. 50)

Further, he stated:

There is no question that such a plan exists. But it would be wrong to believe that this plan
exists in the full light of consciousness. (p. 51)

The germ of the anticipatory plan “finds its development only during the performance of the

action” (p. 51), so that the feedback generated by movement concurrently organizes the

execution of it. The anticipatory plan sets up an aim or focus toward which, Schilder suggested,

our actions are directed.

 66

The anticipatory plan furnishes a gnostic image or “optic representation” (Schilder, 1935/1978, p.

52) of the spatial relationship surrounding the anticipated action, that guides the initiation of every

movement. Schilder posited that the anticipatory plan ensures the realization of each action

because it provides the structure needed to guide one’s intention. Schilder’s notion of the

anticipatory plan has a closer relationship to human physiology than psychological experience in

that he referred to it as “an organic trace” (p. 50). However, he also proposed that there is an

optic experience at the beginning of every movement that implies the activity of thought, albeit

less conscious aspects of thought.

More recent ideas about the anticipatory plan confirm many of Schilder’s (1935/1978) insights.

For example, Kelso and Wallace (1978) described the anticipatory plan as an “image” (p. 104)

that enables movement to be generated. “The anticipatory signals…are the basis on which

commands are organized, one of their functions being to serve as a referent for the interpretation

of incoming feedback….” (p. 105). The anticipatory plan is a structure we set up in order to

generate movement. It is also a referent or context through which subsequent plans for action are

organized. Schilder elaborated on the notion of the anticipatory plan as referent by pointing to the

gnostic activity he attributed to synaesthetic perception, and to the dynamic construction that

supported the anticipatory plan. Schilder also made considerable comment on the way

movement is initiated, or how the body is found.

2.4.2.2 The body needs to be found

Schilder (1935/1978) argued that before any movement can be initiated, one must find a point in

the body from which to begin. Finding that point, or finding the body, is never an automatic act, it

is not given, and must always involve some cognitive effort even though the selection made for

the initiation of the movement may not require conscious effort. Finding the body requires effort

by the visual, kinesthetic and tactile systems. The knowledge of the body must continually be

constructed and finding the body is part of the activity of building that knowledge.
 67

The need to find the body suggests that the gnostic image used for any given movement is never

a fully formed one. The constructive activity Schilder (1935/1978) attributed to the body image

was always the greater part of every movement. Movement could be directed to an object located

within the region of one’s own body (the psychological space of the body), or to a place in outside

space (a geometric understanding of space). Schilder emphasized that the space of the inside of

the body and the outside space were distinct psychic structures, but in each there is always “an

object towards which the action is directed” (p. 51). He pointed out that the inside area of one’s

own body could not be directly observed and could only be constructed through movement with
2
the aid of the kinesthetic system, or through the use of pictures of the outside world. Finding the

body thereby is associated with both these activities.

Schilder (1935/1978) stressed the importance of finding the body by highlighting the role it played

in normal human action and where, in its absence, persons were often unable to perform

purposive movement, as in apraxia. Schilder’s interpretation of human action posited the postural

model, as the referent needed to conceive and perform voluntary movement. The notion of

finding the body illustrated how his theoretical framework was closely linked to an epistemology

of reflective, phenomenal experience. This included the subjective perception of the mass and

weight of the body.

2.4.2.3 The mass and weight of the body

Schilder (1935/1978) purported that the body was necessarily a body of motion, even when it is

seemingly at rest. The mass of the body he suggested was thereby treated in exactly the same

way as other weighted objects:

2
“But in the majority of cases we do not have a body-image concerning the inside of our body.
Therefore we reach the body only by pictures of the outside world. We cannot directly suggest
changes in metabolism, but we can suggest to a naked person that he feels warm, and the basal
metabolism will react not in the sense of a decrease but even in the sense of an increase…We
come to the important general conclusion that the body-image and the picture of the world lead to
the vegetative changes, and it follows that our body is dominated by the image of the body which
is in close relation to the world” (Schilder, 1935/1978, p. 178).
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We feel the heavy mass of our own body in the same way as we feel any other heavy
mass. We do not feel anything else but the heavy mass inside our own body. All other
sensations are felt very near the surface (p. 294).

The body, he noted, had centres of gravity in the legs, abdomen and head that need to be

accounted for when initiating movement, but the perceived weight of the body would always vary

according to the muscular effort. The more effort exerted in an action, the heavier the body part

would feel. The mass and weight of the body is the only information available to perception about

the inside of our body he proposed, and even this is distorted in some pathological conditions.

“Many of the neurotic and pathological changes in the perception of our own body are changes in

the gravity or levity of the body and are changes concerning the substance filling the body” (p.

93). He added that the mass and weight of the body were important in establishing the centre of

gravity and the basic framework for movement.

2.4.3 The physiological dimension: Summing up

In brief then, the physiological dimension of the body image, according to Schilder (1935/1978),

concerned perceptual activity combined with gnostic activity. Anticipatory plans implied to

Schilder that finding the body was an essential part of the continual activity of the body image.

Finding the body implied the activity of dynamic construction and the need for a psychological

reference point to enable complex action without conscious attention. Further the physiological

dimension involved the subjective capacity for and experience of movement and the dispositional

record and accrued knowledge produced as a result of movement.

Schilder’s physiological dimension was thereby more than simply an organic capacity that may lie

within the primary and secondary motor cortex. It certainly included that which was observable in

the postural model of the body, but also included a frame of reference, the creation of a thought

for physical action. As subjective experience, Schilder’s (1935/1978) physiological dimension

identified the thought associated with one’s capacity for movement, albeit unconscious thought,

as being something that was necessary but also developed across time.
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2.5 The libidinous structure of the body image

The second dimension, the libidinous structure of the body image relates to a different set of data

and provides a different context for considering self-perception. Schilder’s (1935/1978)

description of the libidinous structure presents a dimension of experience that is apprehended

through “our attitudes towards the love-object, or, in a broader sense, the animate world” (p.

174). The libidinous structure was interpreted by Schilder at the level of phantasy and thus is

associated with consciousness albeit much of it being unconscious in relation to conscious

thought.

Schilder (1935/1978) described seventeen principles concerning the libidinous structure of the

body image. They are paraphrased in the following. Schilder considered emotion as the basis

upon which the relative clarity of different parts of the body is established. Variation in emotion he

suggested affected the construction of the body image at the surface and in the inner parts of the

body. Changes in emotion, he suggested, could bring about physical change and deficits or

distortions in perception. Any changes that might occur in the perception of one’s own body

would be felt in the experience of others’ bodies as well as one’s own. The attitude established

concerning one’s own body, he suggested, was elaborated from the attitudes held by significant

others in relation to different parts of the body and from the actions and touches of those others

toward our body. Correspondingly he noted that the interest that those significant others have in

relation to their own body, will influence the interest that we each might establish to respective

parts of our own body. He noted that individuals appersonize the body parts of others, that is, that

persons acquire the body parts of others imaginarily, as though identifying with them. Illness, he

noted, changes the body image. He explained how psychological pain might be represented

either by illness or hypochondriacal experience in the body image. Such pain could also result in

a withdrawal from the actual presence of the body. Experiences in infancy become part of the

body image. Schilder attributed the emotional unity of the body image to the need of the subject

to attain “full object relations” (p. 172) and observed that anxiety plays a significant role in

feelings of dismemberment. Finally, he identified hysteria as being recognizable as the attempt to

eliminate those aspects of the body image that have come to symbolize the sex organs.
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At the level of the libidinous structure, the body image is not an object, but is an orientation of

tendencies or, to use the Freudian term, of “drives” (Trieb) toward objects in the world. Schilder‘s

(1935/1978) use of terms like ‘mental image’ and ‘picture’ therefore often failed to capture what

he meant when referring the libidinous structure although, if one remembers that he

conceptualized the dynamic theory with an awareness of the relationship between continual flow

and the crystallization of points of rest, the ambiguity in his writing can be clarified somewhat. In

other words, he always described the body image as emerging from the relationship between the

two tendencies, as expressed here:

When we talk of pictures and contrast them with desires it should not be forgotten that in
the final analysis they form an inseparable unit and are only two sides of the total human
activity. (p. 176)

According to Schilder, the libidinous structure emerged as a function of dynamic construction

which, following the activity of synaesthetic perception constructs a sense of unity through which

the body is apprehended as a whole entity. This process of emergence, he argued, is contingent

on developmental constraints and runs parallel with cognitive development and object relations’

development. The apperception of the body thus has a close association with the concept

referred to as the ego in the psychoanalytic literature. The tendencies underlying that activity

correspond with the drives.

2.5.1 The libidinous structure of the body image and the object world

The building up of the body-image is based not only upon the individual history of an
individual, but also on his relations to others. The inner history is also the history of our
relations to other human beings. (Schilder, 1935/1978, p. 138)

Dynamic construction, according to Schilder, was facilitated by the relationships with which the

infant, child or adult is engaged. Dynamic construction, he noted, is largely an unconscious

experience and its character could be identified in the continual perceptual attention individuals

direct to the bodies of other human beings in their development. This does not refer simply to

tactile experience, but to dynamic and imaginative contact at all levels of perception. The

libidinous structure is an unconscious dynamic that Schilder first represented in the attunement

and containment served by the presence of the mother in infancy.

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In Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory, the libidinous structure is an unconscious frame of reference

through which we learn to differentiate and integrate the world of the body from the world outside

the body, as part of normal development. He pointed out that such differentiation is never

straightforward, and that processes attributed to identification with others can be confused with

what might ordinarily be identified as self-experience. He expanded:

Body and world are experiences which are correlated with each other. One is not possible
without the other… [F]rom the point of view of adult thinking, the body will be projected into
the world, and the world will be introjected into the body… [that is] body and world are
continually interchanged. It may be that a great part of experiences will not be finally
attributed either to body or world. I have mentioned the zone of indifference between the
body and world and have stated that in the narcissistic stage the zone of indifference may
play a more important part. (p. 123)

The libidinous structure, he considered, never completely transcends the ambiguity experienced

in the distinction between one’s own body and all other bodies. This ambiguity is what Schilder

referred to as the zone of indifference, referred to in the passage above. In other words, the

libidinous structure of the body image is a phantasmic construction that emerges in parallel with

psychological development, and throughout life is continually reconstituted or stitched together

with the aid of the identifications we make with others. This dimension of the image is difficult to

assign exclusively either to the world of ideas or to one’s emotional life, but is far more closely

linked to our emotional life.

2.5.2 The cohesion of the body image and the role of emotion

According to Federn (1952), a sense of cohesion endows psychic life with the feeling of continuity

with the body over time, a sense of bodily unity in space and a physical sense of causality.

Achieving the feeling of cohesion, however, is never a simple matter of course. Schilder

(1935/1978) emphasized that the sense of cohesion we attribute to the body image in adulthood

is overrated, and that destructive tendencies like anxiety continually disrupt it:

…[F]eeling our body intact is not a matter of course. It is the effect of self-love. When
destructive tendencies go on, the body is spread all over the world… One would like to say
that we lose the unity of our body only under special pathological conditions; but we also
have to remember how much the feeling of our body varies under normal conditions…
There are forces of hatred scattering the picture of our own body and forces of love putting
it together… Neither the optic nor the kinaesthetic or tactile impressions give us a ready-
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made impression of our body. We have, in fact, built it up so as to give a shape to the
vague material. (p. 166)

Schilder summarized particularities of how emotions and the cohesion of the body image are

related. The assumption underlying his description was that the body image has a direct

relationship to the normal development of narcissism, which in psychodynamic terms is the

expected love each individual has for his or her own body.

2.5.2.1 The relation of the body image to narcissism

The psychoanalytic interpretation of narcissism is a developmentally driven process relating to

the emergence of thought in the human child. It is characterized in infancy and early childhood by

the capacity to apprehend oneself as a unified entity, a function attributed to the ego. The stages

of this particular development are represented by the psychoanalytic terms ‘primary narcissism’

and ‘secondary narcissism’, and the source and motility of the developmental changes within it

are, according to Schilder (1935/1978), given shape by the parallel development of the body

image.

As noted in Section 1.3.1 in Chapter one, Schilder (1935/1978) interpreted the libidinous

development of the human infant from the description given by Freud (1905/1986; 1914/1984), in

his three essays on sexuality and later work. The libidinous structure of the body image, thereby,

was seen as derived from sensorial contact and from the rhythm established between the primary

carer (usually the mother) and the infant. The daily routine of care and feeding is both a temporal

and sensory experience. They are mapped by the infant onto the infant’s body, and are recorded

on the body’s surface and at the body’s orifices. The achievement of primary narcissism occurs

when the web of bodily sensitivity that has been built up from the rhythm and contact of care and

feeding, is captured cognitively. Primary narcissism, the earliest experience of self-awareness,

provides the infant with a structure for the body image. Through primary narcissism the infant

eventually comes to differentiate himself or herself from the external world. Schilder underlined

the role of the body in this developmental stage:

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But we now turn to the problem of narcissism which is so closely connected with the
problems discussed in this book. What is the relation of narcissism to the image of the
body? No libido or energy of the desires of the ego can be present unless there is an
object with which they are connected… Freud himself refers to the ‘Triebrepresentanzen’,
the representation for the instincts. We have therefore always to ask, “What is the object
towards which the instinct is directed?” The narcissistic libido has as its object the image of
the body. But there is no question that our body can exist only as part of the world. (p. 122)

Primary narcissism is an important stage in psychological development. The structure it provides

is both psychic and part of the world. The contact with the primary carer supplies the prototype on

which the infant’s primitive cognitive ability to construct wholes, is built. The infant must organize

bodily sensation, like discomfort and anxiety, with the same efficiency that he or she experiences

love and satisfaction. Primary narcissism provides the infant with a degree of autonomy and

signals the earliest signs of normal ego development. Schilder’s description fell short when

attempting to identify how the body is apprehended as the object, but his consideration of

constructive activity supported the significance of a psychological event, like that captured by the

mirror-role of mother and the mirror stage described in Section 1.3 of Chapter one, through which

this achievement is enabled.

2.5.2.2 The cohesion of the body image and psychopathology

Schilder (1935/1978) described a number of psychological conditions that he recognized as

pathological expressions of the libidinous structure. They arise, he suggested, as a result of a

lack of equilibrium in the structuralization of the body image from experiences such as pain or

itching, through “the actions of our hand on the body, the actions of others towards our body

[and] the interest of others concerning our body” (p. 127), especially the emphasis given to the

erotogenic zones.

A lack of equilibrium in the body image involves the repression of central experiences relating to

the body image, while at the same time the activity of dynamic construction serves to organize

the perceptual impressions associated with them. Schilder proposed that conditions like

hypochondriacal pain may be established on the basis of patterns in pre-existing organic

conditions, or that they may mimic organic states. Hence, the lack of equilibrium in the body
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image is evident in the prominence given to the illness. The lack of equilibrium in

depersonalization, on the other hand, is represented by an absence in the normal narcissistic

investment or lack of interest in the body to the extent that the body and its actions are observed

only from “the point of view of a spectator” (p. 138) and not from a more subjective perspective.

Equilibrium is unsettled in hysterical symptoms when a sexualized wish is repressed and

separated from its bodily correlate, the excitation of the senses. The physical experience is

thereafter invested in the production of a symptom rather than in the expression of the wish.

Unconscious investment of energy can also be shifted to body parts or illnesses as though they

had the significance of the secondary sexual organs. Emotion, Schilder suggested, also affects

the perceived weight and gravity of the body and can transpose the symptomatic effects

experienced in one part of the body to another.

Experiences throughout life never cease to affect the body image, according to Schilder

(1935/1978). People can incorporate in unconscious phantasy parts of each other’s bodies and

transpose the value attached to one part of the body onto other parts. He noted that there is a

direct relationship between psychogenic pain and sadomasochism, and that a sadistic attitude to

other bodies can affect the cohesion of one’s own body image. Anxiety, he suggested,

dismembers the body image, while depersonalization is characterized as a withdrawal from the

body image.

2.5.3 Plasticity of the body image

Head and Holmes’ (1911-12) remark cited in Section 1.1 in Chapter one, concerning the ability to

localize the body to the tip of a feather in one’s hat, characterizes the plasticity associated with

the physiological structure of the body image. Schilder’s (1935/1978) notion of plasticity,

however, referred to much more than the spatiality of the body.

At the libidinous level of the body image, plasticity emerges as an artifact of having a body and a

body image that change across time. For example, in adulthood there may be the image of the
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fully grown body, but the content of this body image includes the series of images through which

it has developed. Plasticity is inferred by Schilder (1935/1978) from the observation that we not

only carry with us the image of our changing and aging body. We also keep carrying the aspects

of the body image we have accumulated throughout childhood and adolescence. In addition, he

suggested that the plasticity of the body image is evident in imaginary life:

It is one of the inherent characteristics of our psychic life that we continually change our
images; we multiply them and make them appear differently. This general rule is true also
for the postural model of the body. We let it shrink playfully and come to the idea of
Lilliputians, or we transform it into giants. We have therefore, an almost unlimited number
of body-images (p. 67).

The plasticity of the libidinous structure of the body image has a dual character. In one sense the

libidinous structure constitutes a unity of experience, but it is also a plastic activity that responds

to the surrounding context. Contexts such as sexual intimacy, creative performances and

ceremonial rituals all alter the limitations of the body as we know it. Masks, clothing and

costumes can also play a role. Schilder saw dance as especially effective in transforming the

rigidity of the body image. In addition, the function of the clothing that may be associated with

dancing serves to increase a feeling of freedom from gravity and freedom from the habits within

the postural model. Dance loosens the body image and that loosening facilitates changes to our

“psychic attitude” (p. 208).

2.5.4 The libidinous dimension: Summing up

The libidinous structure of the body image forms, then, in the context of libidinous object

relationships according to Schilder (1935/1978). It provides the organization for our sense of

bodilyness. It also organizes the erotogenic body that becomes the greater part of adult

psychosexuality. Emotion is central to the development of the libidinous structure to the extent

that self-love is associated with a sense of cohesion in this dimension. Important stages in the

development of the libidinous structure of the body image include the stages involved in the

development of healthy narcissism. The zone of indifference described by Schilder suggests that

subjective experience of the body is often difficult to locate and can be experienced either in the

body itself or in the world around us. Some psychopathological experience illustrates this
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ambiguity. The role of the libidinous structure of the body image in psychological illness has been

largely overlooked in the psychological literature. It has a latent presence in psychoanalytically

oriented writings on psychosomatic illness (Dunbar, 1943; Anzieu, 1989; McDougall, 1989; Turp,

2001), but is not conceptualized in any great detail in the discipline of psychology.

The libidinous structure of the body image is noted in Schilder’s (1935/1978) view, for its

plasticity. Plasticity enables psychic life to change our body according to the situation, relocate

body experience and to exchange the value attributed to different body parts to new parts in

accordance with our libidinal experiences. The plasticity of the body is most fully recognizable in

the shift in psychic attitude that comes from the experience of dance and movement.

2.6 The sociological dimension of the body image

Schilder’s (1935/1978) elaboration of the sociological dimension of the body image hypothesized

that the spatiality of the body image, introduced in Section 2.3 with regard to the physiological

level, extends not simply to a relationship with geometric space but includes a relationship to

other persons and bodies. The sociological dimension combines the physiological capacity for

extension of the body (exemplified by the spatial awareness created by the hat feather in the

example of Section 1.1) with the capacity to transform the limits of the body created by its

libidinous structure. Schilder characterized the sociology of the body image as a capacity to

dynamically construct the body image through an imaginary extension into space. Schilder’s

description of the sociology of the body image implied the existence of an entity that identifies

with other bodies and can incorporate body parts belonging to other people.

Stating that the sociological dimension of the body image is facilitated by vision, Schilder

(1935/1978) noted that the eyes “grant the possibility of establishing social relations with another

person” (p. 238). This does not suggest that poor vision at a neurological level would prevent the

development of social relationships, but that the sociological dimension of the body image is

structured according to a representational order. The sociological dimension of the body image
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extends the field dependence of libidinous life into the world of social relations, and, in that world,

Schilder identified the values pertaining to beauty in society as central to the organization of this

dimension. He noted that “beauty will always be the expression of the libidinous situation in

society” (p. 268), which in the current social milieu would refer to socio-cultural values identified

by Grosz (1994) as pertaining to the sexed body. However, according to Schilder, values

pertaining to beauty could never fully represent the body because they are built on an illusion that

the human body is primarily a body at rest, as though a fixed and motionless representation of

itself:

We should, however, realize that our own body-image and the body-image of others is not
only a body-image at rest but a body-image in movement. But beauty is especially
connected with the body-image at rest…. (p. 270)

Elsewhere Schilder described beauty as “suspended action” (p. 303), a construction captured in

its simultaneity. From this he implied that social values pertaining to beauty introduce fixity to the

body image we come to recognize as our own. Malson (1997) and Hepworth (1998) have each

demonstrated how the values of large-scale social systems and institutions organize sexed

bodies according very fixed parameters. Beauty is but one set of values in which the body image

may be captured in suspended action. The role of emotion presents a counterpoint to this

suspended action.

2.6.1 The role of emotion

Schilder’s (1935/1978) interpretation of the role of emotion for the body image did not capture

emotion as a quantifiable or scaled reaction to supposed physical appearance, but attributed to it

a spatial quality, in facilitating a dialogue between body images. In his early remarks, he identified

it through the erotic current characteristic of the libidinous structure. Later he qualified the

emergence of the erotic currents in the context of human relationships:

Emotions are directed towards others. Emotions are always social. Similarly, thinking is a
social function even in the lonely person. Humanity is the unseen listener to his thinking.
(p. 218)

In other words emotion links us to the body images of others and, according to Schilder, the

stronger the emotion the closer those others seem to be.

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Emotions are, thereby, an extension of the body image. Using an experimental example, Schilder

(1935/1978) illustrated how in normal experience any muscular tension that a subject views in his

or her mirror image, for example a clenched fist, is experienced with the same intensity as though

it were felt. This affiliation with the mirror reflection he extrapolated to the experience we have

with all bodies. “One could say that the postural model of the body is also present in my picture in

the mirror. But is not every other person like a picture of myself?” (p. 224). In other words, all

human bodies are perceived unconsciously by each person, via the body image, as metaphorical

representations of his or her own body. This metaphorical relationship is shaped by emotion and

characterized by what Schilder referred to as the community of body images or body image

interplay. Emotion associated with the body image, or one’s narcissistic experience of the body,

thus represents both the extent to which one’s body acts as a recognizable referent within the

community of bodies, and marks the extent to which the community may hold a place for the kind

of body each person has.

2.6.2 Body image interplay

Body image interplay does not refer simply to physical contact between bodies for Schilder

(1935/1978), but also to the emotional extension of one body to another. It implies a potential for

relatedness that he suggested is facilitated by eye contact, spatial distance, touch and emotional

relations. Regions of the body communicate between people at a different level of intensity or

more directly than others. For example, the face, he noted, is of special importance, as are the

erogenous zones of the body. Physical contact with other bodies is very challenging to the body

image because “there will be a greater possibility of a complete melting” (p. 235).

The sociological structure of the body image is not static, but in continual interplay with

interpersonal experience. Like the plasticity associated with the postural model it is built up,

dissolved and built up again. Schilder (1935/1978) described this process thus:

An important part of this continuous process of construction, reconstruction, and

dissolution of the body image, is played by the processes of identification, appersonization,
and projection. When the body-image has once been created … it does not remain
unchanged; it is in a continual flow, and a crystallization is immediately followed by a
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plastic stage from which new constructions and new efforts are possible .... Moreover,
there is not only the continual change in our body-image but also the continual changes in
its spatial relations, emotional relations and of the body-images of others and the
construction of the body-images of others. Also the social relation of the body-image is not
a fixed ‘gestalt’. But we have a process of forming a ‘gestalt’, ‘gestaltung’, or creative
construction in the social image. (p. 241)

Body image interplay is dynamic activity first, and a form second. It denotes a fluid process

wherein actions are like stepping-stones in a continual exchange with the world and everything in

it.

2.6.3 The sociological dimension of the body image: Summing up

The sociology of the body image is promoted in Schilder’s (1935/1978) scheme by the

significance given to vision in human psychology, and is captured by the representational order

as an effect of that dominance. Emotion is the conduit through which the sociology of the body

image is structured. Body image interplay refers to the libidinous experience of one’s own body

through the community of body images. Cultural expectations of bodies, like the values pertaining

to beauty, are always an indication of the contextual social situation. They do not necessarily

have any association with the moving body or the libidinous structure of the body image, but

always pertain to a relatively fixed idea shared within a community or culture.

2.7 The constructed body: The significance of Schilder’s theory

In evaluating the significance of Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory of the body image, Tiemersma

(1989) described him as the central author in the psychoanalytic body image literature. This

centrality he associated with Schilder’s theoretical development of Head and Holmes’ (1911-12)

neurological conceptualization into one of a dynamic, libidinous and cognitive activity and

achievement across three dimensions of experience. He also suggested that the creativity of

Schilder’s work could be observed in two streams in his thinking.

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The first stream, Tiemersma (1989) argued, is found in Schilder’s (19351978) appreciation of the

constructed body, brought to light by psychoanalysis and most especially in Freud’s (1950/1966)

Project for a scientific psychology, which acknowledged the felt reality of the body across time in

both conscious and unconscious ways. With an understanding and appreciation of the

constructed body “the reality of the body is no longer [simply] the reality of natural science”

(Tiemersma, 1989, p. 168). The notion of the constructed body does not discount the

effectiveness of an anatomical understanding of the body image pursued in neuroscientific

investigations, but introduces a theoretical position from which the formulations relating to the

organic body and the abstract mind might be considered simultaneously. Schilder’s theory of

dynamic construction, thus, provided the theoretical basis for greater conceptual concordance

between body and mind. It provided a means by which to figure the interrelationship between the

apperception of one’s own unique body experience, individual differences in psychological

development and the world in which we live. It has served as an important concept for

understanding the formation of subjectivity in the post-modern era and has supported the
3
generation of phenomenological thought .

The second stream identified by Tiemersma (1989) as a highly original contribution was identified

in Schilder’s (1935/1978) description of the development of narcissism. Tiemersma (1989) noted

that Schilder departed slightly from Freud’s (1914/1984) description of the development of

narcissism, and in so doing specified more precisely the subjective bodily entity from which it is

structured. The relationship he established between an emerging sense of having a body and the

development of an ego, is in consonance with Gallagher and Cole’s (1995/1998) observation of

the relationship between reflective intentionality, which refers to the agency felt by the social

subject, and the role of the body image. This acute observation by Schilder has been overlooked

in the psychoanalytic literature, but as Grosz (1994, p. 74) noted, is the axis on which Lacan’s

3
Just as Schilder paid homage to Brentano (1874) by characterizing perception as a process and
an act upon the world, Weiss (1999) noted that the phenomenologist Merleau-Ponty made
reference to Schilder’s work throughout his various texts including “The structure of behaviour,
… Phenomenology of perception,… and even in a November 1959 Working Note from The Visible
and the Invisible” (1999, p. 139). Phenomenology and the psychodynamic work of Schilder thus
share many assumptions.
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mirror stage “coalesces” with Schilder’s work. However, what distinguished Schilder’s theory from

that of Lacan (1949/1977) was his organizational framework. Where Lacan built his ideas on a

structuralist or synchronous framework, Schilder used a dynamic or diachronic one.

Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory on the body image revealed a concept that emerged through

consideration of both psychoanalytic theory and neuroscientific ideas, but diverged from each of

these in suggesting a relationship between them. Schilder diverged from neurological ideas by

attending to psychological life. In turn, he diverged from psychoanalytic theory by introducing the

notion of a dynamically constructed body in the context of the three dimensions he proposed.

This approach emphasized an organic-cum-psychic activity that operates at an unconscious level

of experience. In his concluding remarks he described four levels through which he understood

body experience. The first he identified with physiological experience, the second with the

emergence of consciousness, the third with the psychological experience of one’s own

consciousness, and the fourth, with the interaction between human psychology and somatic

experience. Schilder concluded: “There is a continuous interaction of these four levels of the

postural model of the body” (p. 295). In other words, no matter what level we may use to

understand the body, all four levels are necessarily in continual interaction with each other. He

proposed also that this activity was patterned along the lines of synaesthetic perception, and that

phantom phenomena provided the basis upon to build a broader understanding of the concept he

referred to as the body image.

2.8 The place of Schilder’s theory in the literature on the body image

The present chapter described Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory in terms of a number of important

propositions concerning the felt reality of the body in psychical development, and more

specifically concerning the role of movement. Chapter one noted that the discipline of psychology

often acknowledges Schilder’s theory for its historic contribution, but attributes little relevance

either to his overall framework or to the role of movement. In particular, psychological concepts

are more concerned to freeze the motility of the human body, to eliminate movement and the

image it constructs, in order to measure ‘accurately’ a static, cognitive entity. By comparison,

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neuroscientific study can claim a more direct connection to Schilder’s study of physiological

disturbances of the body image, even though authors in that field, such as Ramachandran and

Blakeslee (1999), demonstrated a fairly ambivalent relationship to the explanatory power of

psychodynamic ideas in building an understanding of the human mind. Gallagher and Cole

(1995/1998) acknowledged the role that reflective intentionality plays in the formation of the body

image, but they appeared to be unable to describe how that reflective intentionality organizes the

body image. The psychodynamic literature has maintained many of Schilder’s assumptions on

the formation of the body image, but tended not to explore that peripheral phenomenon in any

detail.

Beyond the disciplines of neuroscience, psychoanalytic theory and psychology, philosophical

descriptions of Schilder’s (1935/1978) ideas by Grosz (1994) and Gatens (1996) have located his

theory more squarely in its role in the constitution of gender and the formation of a psychical

interiority in the emergence of subjectivity. Notably, Grosz (1994) gave emphasis to the

anchoring and organizing point proffered by a cohesive body image and described the

interleaved relationship it may have with the activity of perception. However, such authors have

not highlighted the tri-dimensional structure of the body image or explored Schilder’s theory

through empirical research.

As articulated in the present chapter, Schilder (1935/1978) used three aspects of bodily

experience to fully describe the dynamic body image. The physiological dimension has a dynamic

character that is supported by the connections built up by the binding or stitching activity of the

dynamic construction and represented by the activity of synaesthetic perception and

apperception. Schilder’s interpretation of the materiality of the body was thereby never very far

removed from intrapsychic experience. His three dimensions run closely in parallel with what

Ussher (2000, p. 83) referred to as a “material-discursive-intrapsychic analysis” of the

psychological experience of the body. Schilder’s description of the libidinous structure of the body

image sits in close relationship to psychodynamic studies of psychosomatic illness. His

proposition, presented in Section 2.4.1.1 above, that the body image itself may simply be a
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phantom, reiterates what is largely a psychodynamic interpretation of what a constructed body is,

from the point of view of felt reality.

Schilder’s (1935/1978) monograph did not elaborate very extensively on the third of the three

dimensions. The sociology of the body image, as he called it, offered little empirical material upon

which to explore the effect of the libidinous situation in society upon the emergence of the body

image. However, Schilder demonstrated that there is a clear difference between the fixity that

social values impose upon ‘the body-image at rest’ and the dynamic construction to which he

focused the larger portion of his interest. This interest indicated that he was most fascinated by

what Freud (1940/1986) had referred to as the life instincts.

Schilder (1935/1978) argued sufficiently that the sociology of the body image is organized

according to the worth society attributes to notions like beauty. In the present day such values

would be conceptualized through interpretations on the power of discourse, but Schilder identified

that such values are also underpinned by dynamic activity. In the present day, the way body is

understood at the level of discourse has been examined at some considerable length by authors

such as Foucault (1977; 1979 & 1982) and Butler (1990) in the social sciences. Rose’s (1997)

critical analysis of techniques and assumptions used in the discipline of psychology identified

how a discourse of a particular organization affects commonplace experience of the body. Within

the discipline of psychology, Ussher (1989) and Malson (1998) have used a similar critical

perspective to examine the effect that knowledge production may have on the felt reality or

commonplace experience of the female body.

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CHAPTER THREE

BEYOND LOGICAL POSITIVISM TO AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH TO THE

BODY IMAGE

Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory was formulated from principles drawn from a range of influences

that described the felt reality of the body in the context of three dimensions. As indicated in

Chapter one, Schilder’s (1935/1978) concept of the body image has not been used to inform

theory or empirical research in the discipline of psychology despite many authors citing his work

as a conceptual antecedent. That chapter also notes that psychodynamic research on the body

image has waned within the discipline since the studies by Fisher and Cleveland (1958/1967).

The present chapter examines the concept of the body image within a philosophical and historical

context, in order to critique the predominant paradigm guiding the conceptual organization and

methodological approaches favored by the discipline of psychology in the study of the body

image. In Section 1.1.3 above, it was argued that Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory permitted the

conceptualization of the indeterminacy of processes, because its structure is framed using a

diachronic sensibility rather than solely structural or synchronic ideas. Within this

conceptualization lies the assumption, like that noted by Winnicott (1967b/1971), that contiguity

happens in the context of continuity. Primacy was thus attributed by Schilder to dynamic activity

and apperception, including self-apperception in body image construction and he always

presented psychological activity as a description of bodily energy.

This chapter concludes by outlining core propositions within his theory pertaining to the

relationship he observed between movement and body image construction. This chapter also

identifies the research questions that have provided a framework for an empirical exploration of

his theory. This chapter concludes by outlining core propositions within his theory pertaining to

the relationship he observed between movement and body image construction. This chapter also

identifies the research questions that have provided a framework for an empirical exploration of

his theory.
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3.1 Re-framing the synchronic within the continuity of diachrony

Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory did not describe the body image as an appearance or structural

entity, but hypothesized the importance of a psychological activity, and dynamically organized

phenomenon. Dynamic construction was characterized by him as a continual flow of activity

followed by the crystallization of points of rest. Every crystallized point of rest is subsequently

followed by what he referred to as further plastic activity. This alternation between new

constructions and a continual flow, highlights the structure of his framework, which, in terms

identified by Massumi (2000), offers a conceptual device that allows one to think the process of

formation. This device Massumi (2000, p. 9) referred to as “a taking-form”. The significance of a

taking-form, he suggested, is the way it permits the conceptualization of potential events and thus

the indeterminacy of processes.

In the structural-functional tradition, the crystallized points of rest, in Schilder’s (1935/1978)

description, are given primacy. Thus constructs like dissatisfaction predominate the psychological

literature. However, from the dynamic point of view, those structural-functional constructs can be

re-interpreted in the context of the underlying process. The notion of the taking-form thus

suggests that the gradual emergence and process Schilder (1935/1978) associated with dynamic

construction underlies any emotional coherence or satisfaction that structural-functional

constructs identify, and thereby also the body image as it is experienced in everyday life.

Sections 1.3.2 and 1.3.3 in Chapter one describe how psychodynamic ideas have conceptualized

the role that visual perception plays in the capacity to become a psychologically self-reflective

subject. Those discussions demonstrate that psychodynamic theory does not quantify or objectify

visual perception, but regards it as an important sensory medium through which the formation of

the psychological subject is enabled. Psychodynamic ideas pertaining to the study of the body

image and its disturbance in eating disorders, by authors such as Orbach (1999), Shipton (1999)

and Malson (1997), have enlarged the context in which the body image might be understood in

psychology. More specifically Malson (1997) and Hepworth (1998), have identified the role that

discourse plays in both psychological health and physical health. However, as Ussher (2000)
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pointed out, psychodynamic ideas have had little impact on mainstream research in the

discipline. The volume collated by Cash and Pruzinsky (2002) on body image theory, research

and practice, is an example wherein only one chapter in a total of 56 was devoted to a theoretical

summary of psychodynamic ideas, and nowhere in that volume were psychodynamic

investigations reported. Arguably the emphasis that the discipline of psychology places on

synchronic ideas has had a direct impact on the way psychodynamic ideas are perceived within

the discipline. The predominance and popularity of synchronic models within psychological

research can be examined from a historical perspective on the development of empirical methods

within the Western philosophical tradition. Further, that tradition can be evaluated within an even

broader philosophical context, in which scientific endeavors are evaluated according to

concurrent assumptions about the nature of human visual perception.

3.1.1 The rational observer in positivist psychology

It can be argued that the dominance attributed to synchronic ideas in the discipline of psychology

has derived from a historic moment in which the investigative methods used in science were

acutely demarcated from those used in other modes of inquiry. This moment can be

characterized by the influence of a particular way of understanding human visual perception, and

by the transformation created by that influence on the way the scientist was reconceptualized as

a rational observer. This moment coincided with the emergence of a very particular value system

within the Western philosophical tradition that asserted very specific parameters on the nature of

observation, and strict limitations on that to which science might direct its attention. The

characteristics of this value system are demonstrated by the assumptions of logical positivism,

but before exploring these it is important to explain the foundation of what is understood by the

notion of the rational observer.

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3.1.1.1 The rational observer and visual perception

Crary (1990) used a historical perspective to demonstrate the role that the technical device, first

conceived in the sixteenth century and known as the camera obscura, has played in the way

visual perception has been conceptualized by the Western philosophical tradition since the

eighteenth century. Draaisma (2000) described the camera obscura as:

…[A] darkened chamber with a hole in one of the walls. In bright light the rays entering
through the opening will project an image of the outside world on the opposite wall. This
projection is upside down, left and right are reversed. (p. 104)

Draaisma commented that the effect of this device and the projection it produced was used by

Descartes in the Traité de l’homme to demonstrate the function of the human optical retina.

Draaisma added that this metaphor was inaccurate as an illustration of human perception, and

noted that it can be applied as a metaphor of visual perception for only one living species of

deep-sea fish.

Crary (1990) argued that the metaphorical link between the camera obscura and human

perception, though unsuitable, shaped the way visual perception was conceptualized during the

early part of the nineteenth century and that through this association “a new kind of observer” (p.

2) was conceived. This new kind of observer, and the subsequent philosophical point of view it

represented, asserted that the projection of images onto the inner wall of the camera obscura

accurately represented the function of human visual perception. Vision thereby became

interpreted similarly to a technical apparatus within which the play of pure light created images

upon the retina, in the same way the inner wall of the camera obscura had images projected onto

it.

Stafford (1993) described the emergence of the rational observer as the result of a very literal

association made between the projection produced by that early technical device and visual

perception. The literal interpretation, she argued, effected a change in the concept of observation

such that it became “disembodied” (p. 378), and opened the way for the quantification of minutiae

in human sensory experience. It promoted the idea that a pure visual perception could exist and

that it was removed from the other bodily senses. She noted further that it legitimized the notion
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that observation could be value free. As newer technical devices superceded the camera

obscura, they supplanted it as metaphorical exemplar, but the distortion created by the first literal

interpretation of vision, as pure light, remained. Stafford (1993) wrote:

The perceptual activity of enlargement [provided by new techniques for magnification]

became confused with an ethical and rational compulsion to attain intellectual exactitude…
Positivists…[were] obsessed with the mathematization either of empirica or noetica...
[Consequently they] persisted in underestimating the complexity and subtlety of the
information processing occurring during the sensory and affective apprehension of the
milieu. They forgot that perceiving, feeling, and understanding are so mixed and
intermingled that we cannot straightly do one without involving the others. (p. 469)

The new kind of observer became disconnected from the intermingling of perception. In that

rupture visual perception became recomposed along the lines of “the relations between a

mechanical apparatus and a pre-given world of objective truth” (Crary, 1990, p. 39). Methods of

empirical inquiry thus became endorsed according to the way they structured the privilege

attributed to pure vision, while they asserted the possibility of a cleavage between the act of

seeing and the other senses.

3.1.1.2 Visual perception and the phenomenal body

Stafford (1993) described how the literal interpretation of visual perception as an apparatus

changed the potential for observation within empirical investigations. This process of flattening

the notion of observation coincided with counter arguments in philosophy on the embodied nature

of visual perception. For example, Crary (1990) described how, during the nineteenth century,

Goethe and Schopenhauer conceptualized vision more authentically. Crary (p. 70) described how

each of these authors identified vision as “irreducible” in its composite and synaesthetic

character. Schopenhauer, he suggested, “rejected any model of the observer as passive receiver

of sensation and instead posed a subject who was both the site and producer of sensation” (p.

75). Vision, from the point of view of the phenomenal body, is never neutral according to Crary,

nor is it separate from the object perceived or disconnected from other sensory impressions. This

interpretation conjured a very different idea on the nature of visual perception that informs the

psychoanalytic descriptions of the role of visual perception in the construction of the subject.
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3.1.2 What is ‘an image’

The two contrasting positions described above are differentiated most from each other at the

point where each must identify what the image in ‘body image’ is. The point of view of the rational

observer characterizes visual perception in terms of an apparatus. The image in such an

example corresponds to the representation of that to which the eye is directed, as though a

projection onto the inside wall of the camera obscura. However, the alternative point of view

characterizes visual perception as the effect of a synthesis of sensory information. As did

Schilder (1935/1978), this approach depicts the separation of visual perception from other

sensory information as an effect of abstraction. A visual representation certainly captures what

visual perception can do, but an image is more than representation and the image of the body is

doubly perplexing because it is constructed on the basis of self-referential perception, including

the perception involved in movement and is thereby an image unlike any other.

The image of the body proposed by Schilder (1935/1978) cannot be reduced to the character of

one sensory modality, although each sensory modality allows the subject to experience the body

image in unique ways. Critchley (1950), for example, described the experience of the

professional soprano who, while singing “would become ‘transported’ and seemed to be free of

her body and oblivious of her audience” (p. 339). Given that operatic training requires the

performer to acquire the ability to project the voice, it is not illogical that the auditory perception of

one’s voice projected into space might influence the experience of the body image too. Schilder

recognized body image was built up from experience and that it comes through the senses

although, as noted in the previous chapter, he emphasized that “…it is not mere perception.

There are mental pictures and representations involved in it, but it is not mere representation” (p.

11).

3.1.3 A premise for critique

In presenting an interdisciplinary and philosophical examination of methods used in research on

the body image and body schema, Tiemersma (1989) questioned the investigative effectiveness
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of concepts used in guiding body image research, and the philosophical assumptions supporting

the knowledge they have produced. In doing so, he identified problems with the way the body

image has been conceptualized in many empirical studies within the discipline of psychology.

Tiemersma (1989) emphasized that the psychological understanding of the body image should,

practically speaking, derive from three contexts of knowledge production. These three contexts

are the subjective observations in everyday life, the context of empirical research, and the

context of philosophical interpretation. However, he noted that both specialist and everyday

understanding of the body image has been drawn largely from neurobiological models and the

mechanistic constructs of psychology. This composition, he suggested, has fixed and frozen the

conceptual nature of the body image because the concept is expected to comply with the

procedural technology and the operational definitions used in research. Rose (1997) has since

argued that the technological language used in disciplines like psychology is detrimental to the

self-experience of the subject and to mental health in industrialized societies, because it covertly

reorganizes subjective interpretations of what is felt to be common experience. The mechanistic

constructs applied in psychological research, he argued, have the capacity to transform our felt

reality because they come to be used as substitutes for the language and meanings created and

used by individuals in everyday life. Following Rose’s argument, it is possible to conclude that a

concept like body dissatisfaction might easily increase subjective attention to otherwise diffuse

experiences, veil one’s perception of more subtle experiences pertaining to the body image while

claiming to signify what individuals report about the body image. Shipton (1999), Ogden and

Evans (1996) and Tiemersma have all emphasized the extent to which quantitative measurement

of the body image functions as a judgmental device controlling the experience of participants in

empirical studies in which they are used. The epistemological context in which this device is

applied is described in Section 3.2.3 below.

Comments by authors such as Gallagher and Meltzoff (1996) and Sheets-Johnstone (2002) have

augmented Schilder’s (1935/1978) emphasis upon both the plasticity of the body image and the

role of movement and dynamic construction. For example, both of these sources emphasized the

emergent character of the body image. In particular, Sheets-Johnstone underlined the

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synaesthetic basis of the body image by referring to it as an “affectively and tactile-kinesthetically

charged” entity (p. 43). Solms and Turnbull (2002) reinforced this idea when describing from what

one’s subjective knowledge of the body is constructed. They suggested that there are two

sources of information serving the construction of knowledge about one’s body. The first derives

from the “visceral body” which is regulated by the homeostatic systems and organizes a map of

the functions of the body (Solms and Turnbull, p. 109). The second they noted is linked to the

“musculo-skeletal system”, or “sensorimotor apparatus”, and maps the movements and potential

movements of the body (p. 109). The affectively and tactile-kinesthetically charged body image

described by Sheets-Johnstone (2002) would necessarily derive from these systems as well. In

sum, these comments set the scene for a detailed critique of the mainstream approaches applied

to the study of the body image in the discipline of psychology, given that that discipline has failed

to endorse Schilder’s theoretical ideas as relevant to the study of the body image for the greater

part of a century.

Section 3.2 below describes the way logical positivism demarcates the shape of empirical

evidence within the discipline of psychology and thus the conduct of research. It then critiques

the paradigm supporting that position on the basis of dilemmas posed by the assumptions

underlying the dynamic construct. For example, it identifies the role played by the mind-body

problem in body image research, examines the extent of the role played by technological

language used in psychological research and proposes philosophical reasons why the logical

positivist paradigm favors synchrony above diachrony. It also suggests why the discipline has

failed to examine the viability of different approaches, especially the dynamic theory, in the study

of the body image. Lastly, it describes the philosophical premises underlying the dynamic theory

and presents an alternative paradigm, which is used to explore the dynamic concept of the body

image in the context of the experience of a moving body.

3.2 A critique of the role of logical positivism in body image research

As remarked above (Section 3.1.3) Tiemersma (1989) emphasized that all knowledge about the

body image derives from three contexts of observation. In spite of the scope implied by those
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three contexts, he argued that both the specialized and everyday understanding of the body

image has evolved largely from investigations using neurobiological models of what is most often

referred to as the body schema, and the mechanistic constructs pertaining to the body image in

psychology. For example, the discipline of psychology has overlooked Schilder’s (1935/1978)

dynamic theory and the affectively and tactile-kinesthetically charged entity to which Sheets-

Johnstone (2002) referred.

The discipline of psychology has confined its study of the body image to that of an internal

representation and evaluation of one’s outer appearance. This approach is somewhat closed to

interdisciplinary ideas since the methods used in the discipline derive from fundamental

assumptions about the rational observer that are linked to the methodological parameters defined

by the logical positivist paradigm. The possibility that the body image emerges from the continual

construction and re-construction of perception has had little if any discussion in the psychological

literature. There are heuristic constraints imposed upon psychological research by the logical

positivist paradigm. They are not all completely unwise constraints, but they are constraints just

the same.

3.2.1 Logical positivism in psychological research

Logical positivism is a philosophical position that, according to Payne (1997), emerged during the

inter-war years of the twentieth century. Logical positivism is distinguished by the assertion of the

“verification principle” (Payne, 1997, p. 316). This principle seeks and organizes evidence

according to rules that strictly define the limits of criteria suitable for observation or investigation.

These rules narrow the field of criteria suitable for positive research. The kinds of research

questions that can be asked are restricted because only specified kinds of data may be

acknowledged by positive investigations. The rules defining the application of logical in

psychological investigations also constrain the basic beliefs or claims it may assert about

ontology, epistemology and methodology.

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The ontological claims of logical positivism define reality according to rules about the tangibility of

criteria. According to Guba (1990), logical positivism circumscribes the salience of observable

criteria to relationships of cause and effect, and presumes that an empirical observer may easily

adopt a strict realist/ objectivist, or value-free, status in relation to the object of study. This is

reminiscent of the rational observer.

Guba (1990) suggested that the epistemological claims of logical positivism define the

relationship between the researcher and the object of research according to the notion of

objectivism. In the discipline of psychology, objectivism organizes the relationship between

researcher and researched as that between subject and object, involving a distant and often

oppositional interaction between the two. Lincoln and Guba (1985) noted that the logical positivist

stance places the researcher in the position of the sentient and active subject, while the observed

phenomenon, person or situation is defined primarily as a passive object. This active/passive pair

is just one of several binary pairs that are assumed a priori when the objectivist epistemology is

applied. Another binary pair is represented by the mind/body dichotomy discussed in Section

3.2.2 below. Objectivism constrains the potential of empirical aims in psychological research and

limits the understanding one can derive from investigation.

Finally, the methodological claims of the logical positivist stance lead to premium importance

being placed upon experimental research. In line with this position, methodological procedures in

psychology, for example, follow rules of strict hypothesis testing that require the control of

extraneous variables, the verifiable measurement of independent and dependent variables, and

the evaluation of findings according to mathematical criteria generated by statistical probability. In

practical terms, the logical-positivist assumptions have shaped expectations about the

professional standard in psychology referred to as the scientist-practitioner model. However, that

standard cannot guarantee value-free or objective inquiry. As John (1992; 1994), Guba (1990)

and Gergen (1989; 1993) have argued, methodological rigor can easily be used to support

motives that serve the hegemonic status of the discipline, to the same extent that they support

the evolution of psychological knowledge.

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Lincoln and Guba (1985) also argued that the limits imposed by logical positivism have produced

a state of confusion in social science between two important aspects of research. They pointed

out that the rules governing logical positivist research have largely omitted the “context of

discovery” from social research in favor of a “context of justification” (p. 25). In aiming for

prediction and control, they suggested, logical positivist inquiry has failed to consider what can be

drawn from the higher order conceptualization provided by theory, from the genesis of theory or

from what may lay hidden within theory.

3.2.2 The mind-body problem and research in psychology

There is a clear distinction made in psychological research between mind and body, while the

possibility that human psychology is constructed from a dual nature (i.e. having a mind and being

an organic body) is mostly absent from any discourse (psychological or otherwise) with its roots

in Cartesian dualism. Cartesian dualism, or mind-body dualism, is arguably the most significant

intellectual tradition organizing the ontological claims of psychological research, as well as other

heuristic traditions of the West. Bordo (1993) wrote:

Mind/body dualism is no mere philosophical proposition to be defended or dispensed with

by clever argument. Rather it is a practical metaphysic that has been deployed and socially
embodied in medicine, law, literary and artistic representations, the psychological
construction of the self, interpersonal relationships, popular culture and advertisements. (p.
14)

The mind-body problem is at the heart of the intellectual acceptance that visual perception might

be conceived as simply a quantity of light. Grosz (1994) pointed out, for example, that the mind-

body problem implies that mind and body are irreconcilably independent of each other. Within

this metaphysic, the body is conceptualized as a passive, organic and culturally undervalued

material entity that houses an active, cognizant and objective mind or consciousness. The

Cartesian body is little more than a material container, and this idea supports the assumption that

visual perception, a biopsychological ability, can be reduced to a metaphor like that of a

mechanical apparatus. Cartesian dualism has shaped the way visual perception is interpreted

and therefore the way the rational observer and the objects of his observation are understood.
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It was noted in Section 1.4.2 that Tiemersma (1989) observed that psychological research uses

“a memory image of the body recalled, as it used to exist, or a created image of the body which

never existed in the physical world” (p. 188). Given that such an image has been constructed

from specified paradigmatic claims underlying the measurement of the body image, it is important

to add, as Tiemersma did, that such a concept should not be the only “form of appearance of the

body” (p. 313) upon which we rely in empirical inquiry.

3.2.3 The mind-body problem and hypothetical constructs in psychology

The Cartesian distinction between a cognizant mind and a material body has been highly

influential in shaping the construction of procedures used in the study of the body image in the

discipline of psychology. The research enterprise of a logical positivist psychology has

transformed the original dynamic concept into a range of discrete variables suitable for so-called

objective measurement. Significant for this transformation is the way that questions pertaining to

the relationship between mind and body have been bypassed.

In 1969, Shontz acknowledged a serious dilemma posed by the mind-body problem for

psychological research. He wrote:

No field of psychology is more plagued by the philosophical embarrassment known as the

mind-body problem than is the study of perception of the personal body … Formal
philosophical arguments on the mind-body problem have been developed for at least three
hundred years. Generally speaking, they have either failed to provide a firm basis for the
empirical study of body experience or they have labeled the mind-body problem
meaningless and have discarded it altogether…. (p. 2). Modern psychology tends to
bypass the philosophical confusion associated with the mind-body dispute and to proceed
with the job of collecting data … The study of man therefore faces a methodological
dilemma. It must first disassemble the organism for examination and then attempt the
patently impossible task of artificially reconstructing it from the pieces. The belief that this
method provides a satisfactory solution to the dilemma was considered by Krech and
Crutchfield (1958) a profitable “scientific fiction”. The study of personal body perception
must make use of this convenient fiction. If research were delayed until the mind-body
problem is satisfactorily solved by philosophy, the pursuit of hard empirical facts would be
indefinitely postponed (p. 3).

Shontz describes here the way psychology approaches the philosophical dilemma of the mind-

body problem. The solution he identified, however, has not appeared to proffer greater clarity with

respect to the body image but, as argued in Section 1.5.4, has encouraged widespread

conceptual reduction of an otherwise tri-dimensional concept.

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In defence of Shontz (1969), his later description of the role of measurement was more

extensive. There he qualified and delimited its function in the study of the body image to the task

of identifying specifically, the quality of experiences associated with the body image. He thus

associated psychometry in body image research as serving descriptive aims, in the same way

that “projective measures” target such experiences (Shontz, p. 181). As a researcher himself,

Shontz was less concerned with statistical confidence, than with the construction of what he

referred to as “a comprehensive theory” (Shontz, 1990, p. 157). By contrast, other researchers

within the discipline of psychology since the 1960s have taken to the task of measurement and

data collection in a way that implies that a manifold picture of the body image can be built simply

from inter-correlational analyses. The present study contends, however, that more than thirty

years of research have revealed that this pursuit serves a rather unscientific fiction. Rather than a

manifold picture, it has generated plurality in the methods available for the measurement the

body image, that have correspondingly spawned an array of constructs that are neither able to

establish sound correlational relationships to each other or to one common criterion.

The most widely used model in the study of the body image, that is, the dichotomous model

represented by anthropomorphic size estimations and the cognitive and affective ingredients in

the evaluation of one’s appearance, is an offspring of this point of view. However, as Shipton

(1999) has argued, that model has critical flaws since a range of perceptual instruments used in

the assessment of anorexic patients not only measures perception, but can also reinforce an

attitude within the anorexic patient that overly objectifies the physical body. In other words the

dichotomous model can promote the objectification of one’s physical being as a thing, rather than

permit observation of the psychological conditions underlying the disorder.

Schilder (1935/1978) was intently focussed upon the difficult topic of the relation between the

mind and body. The dynamic framework presented in his monograph was an attempt to explore

the mutual relation between the organic and psychological disorders of the central nervous

system. His idea of dynamic construction reconceptualized the activity of apperception and

reiterated its role in the organization of psychological conditions he identified from the

psychoanalytic literature of his day. Schilder did not avoid the philosophical impasse generated
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by the mind-body problem, but rather confronted it directly. He did this by taking advantage of his

training in two different but related discourses on the central nervous system, psychoanalytic

ideas and neurology. He also generated a framework built upon the indeterminacy of processes

that contrasts acutely with the closed and strict parameters of the hypothetico-deductive model

preferred by the logical positivist research in psychology.

It is the opinion here that the assumptions of logical positivism have created confusion in

psychology about what body image is, and have left researchers in the discipline largely silent on

how body image is psychologically constructed. This in some respect reflects what Ussher (2000)

identified with respect to the influence of the hypothetico-deductive model. She argued that

psychological researchers have tended to ignore theory and interdisciplinary or philosophical

ideas, because logical positivist research methods prioritized by the discipline do not supply the

conceptual tools needed to ascertain the significance of concepts reliant upon antecedent

influences. It is thus pertinent to note that the failure of structural-functional research in

psychology to recognize the activity of apperception in Schilder’s (1935/1978) work stems from

the failure to consider the temporality and indeterminacy of processes in body image construction

and, further, the dynamic characterizing those processes.

3.2.4 The limits of logical positivism in understanding body image

It is the assumptions generated by the logical positivist paradigm that have created in the

discipline of psychology the climate in which the structural-functional approach has flourished.

These assumptions, described in Section 3.2.1 above, organize the salience of research criteria

according to statements about cause and effect, and presume that the rational observer

conducting the research may easily adopt a value-free position in relation to the object of study.

This reinforces the notion that research can be conducted objectively. As a consequence, study

of the body image has become equated with the control of extraneous variables, while

independent and dependent variables are operationalized in ever more precise ways. Recent

research by Banfield and McCabe (2002) has exemplified the difficulty of such work and has
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shown the detail to which researchers using structural-functional models must attend in order to

attain precision in their claims. In an attempt to evaluate the efficacy of a multidimensional model

of the body image that they formulated from data pertaining to perception, affect, cognition and

behavior, Banfield and McCabe concluded that:

…[N]ot only should each body image factor be considered as multidimensional, but so
should the items that form these factors. The initial four-factor model posed by this study
was an oversimplification of the complex nature of the body image (p. 388).

The research act permitted these workers to recognize what they were unable to claim about

their model, but limited the positive claims they could make. Any positive claims they made

pertained primarily to methodological considerations in the design of future studies and to the

statistical convergence between their combined scale and the structure of other scales. This

emphasis upon methodological concerns means that studies of this kind generate very little

toward the development of theory on the body image and increase the complexity required of

research design in order to make theoretical claims.

Authors such as Pruzinsky and Cash (2002), Grogan (1999), Thompson, et al. (1999), Slade

(1994), Fisher (1990) and Shontz (1969), have continued to identify Schilder (1935/1978) as the

originator of the body image concept. However, each also differentiates their work from his

theory. This is often done with the implication that Schilder’s theoretical ideas are either

antiquated or an anomaly in the literature. For example, Section 3.2.1 above describes how

Pruzinsky and Cash (2002) and Slade (1994) have in the past reduced the theoretical content of

Schilder’s three hundred page volume to the first sentence of his introduction, and then asserted

that the definition they composed from that reduction was limited in its applicability. The fact that

Schilder was able to propose a process by which we acquire the psychological feeling of

constancy and stability in the experience of our own body, has been largely overlooked in the

psychological literature, especially since the work of Fisher and Cleveland (1958/1967). More

significantly, the congruence between Schilder’s theory and other psychodynamic ideas, such as

the relationship of the body image to the development of primary narcissism, is rarely

acknowledged or observed in the literature. His attempt to work beyond the mind-body problem is

never acknowledged in the discipline of psychology.

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3.2.5 The split between theory and measurement

Tiemersma’s (1989) interdisciplinary and philosophical study of the body image and body

schema posited the decline in popularity in Schilder’s ideas within a wider and more general

decline in the popularity of theory in psychology. He argued this decline was facilitated by the rise

in popularity of the structural-functional approaches of behaviorism and cognitive-behaviorism

during the twentieth century, and by the rise in importance of what he referred to as “differential-

psychometric psychology” (p. 135). The publication by Secord and Jourard (1953) presenting the

Body-Cathexis scale was one of the first to bring body image into the world of psychometric

assessment, and although those authors cited Schilder they did not cite his theoretical volume on

the body image (1935/1978), but used another resource (Schilder, 1938). Secord and Jourard did

not comment on Schilder’s dynamic theory and given the structure of the scale they described, it

can be assumed that its design had little to do with the dynamic theory.

Since the development of the Body-Cathexis scale, multiple assessment measures and

instruments have been developed for the study of the body image. Tiemersma (1989, p. 2)

described many of them as “defective” and suggested the research field has been shaped by

“plurality and vagueness” (p. 3). Vagueness, of course, has abounded in those studies that fail to
1
demonstrate any relationship to wider theoretical or specific axiomatic foundations. Plurality has

been evident in the number of constructs and instruments used in body image research. This

plurality appears to have arisen from the fact that the research enterprise has chased an almost

impossible task to establish clear criteria for the differential diagnosis of psychopathology of the

body image, but has been without adequate theoretical criteria to interpret its statistical outcomes

convincingly. The absence of theory in body image research highlights what Reber (1985)
2
presented in his differentiation of construct validity, convergent validity and nomological validity .

1
Axioms provide self-evident principles. They are endowed with the weight of universal principles
and in psychology have a relationship to either our biopsychological structure or developmental
postulates.
2
Construct validity according to Reber (1985) pertains to the extent to which a measurement
scale used in psychological research adequately captures the specified trait it sets out to
measure. Convergent validity pertains to the extent to which factors within that scale correlate
adequately with other factors that, in principle, are considered to be very similar. Nomological
validity, however, though related to construct validity, emphasizes the importance of every
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Schilder (1935/1978) on the other hand, was interested in body experience in the context of

everyday life as well as illness. He identified the psychological feeling of constancy and stability

associated with the body image and understood the failure of this experience through both

neuroscientific and psychoanalytic ideas. In comparison, fifty years of structural-functional

models of research have produced numerous hypothetical constructs that, as suggested in

Chapter one, have implied to some authors that body image is a “sponge phrase” (Thompson, et

al. 1999, p. 7) and “almost useless” (p. 10). Fisher (1990) presented an even more extreme view

when proposing almost ten years earlier that “there is no such entity as The Body Image” (p. 18).

In spite of this, the ideas described by Krueger (2002) presented in Chapter one, imply that a

psychodynamic interpretation of the body image does have face validity. However, it is unclear

under what assumptions the body image serves as a criterion in mainstream psychological

research given the remarks of Thompson et al. (1999) and Fisher (1990) above. It is the opinion

here that the assumptions of the logical positivism have created confusion in psychology about

what body image is and have left researchers in the discipline largely silent on how body image is

psychologically constructed. This in some respect reflects what Ussher (2000) identified with the

hypothetico-deductive model. In her comments she noted that psychological researchers tend to

ignore theory and interdisciplinary or philosophical ideas because logical positivist research

methods prioritized by the discipline do not supply the conceptual tools needed to ascertain the

significance of concepts reliant upon antecedent influences. It is thus pertinent to note that the

failure of the structural-functional research in psychology to recognize the activity of apperception

in Schilder’s theory stems from the failure to consider the indeterminacy of processes in body

image construction and further the very dynamic characterizing those processes.

3.2.6 An alternative way forward: The dynamic approach to body image

Given that logical positivist assumptions appear to have placed such severe restrictions upon the

furtherance of understanding of body image in the discipline of psychology, the present inquiry

psychological construct being able to demonstrate validity within a broader theoretical framework.
In other words, that its axiomatic foundation is sound.
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returned to Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory as starting point in its attempt to explore parameters of

body image.

3.3 The dynamic body image and the moving body

In academic literature outside the discipline of psychology, the concept of the body image is

conceptualized within a broad interpretation of the development of subjectivity. Psychology as a

whole has yet to adopt either the notion or premises supporting the emergence of subjectivity.

Grosz (1994), on the other hand, has presented an account of the relationship between

subjectivity and the body image, taking a philosophical point of view, and demonstrated that it is a

direct outcome of the productive effect of culture upon the corporeal body via the body image.

She wrote:

A stabilized body image or imaginary anatomy, a consistent and abiding sense of self and
bodily boundaries, requires and entails understanding one’s position vis-à-vis others, one’s
place at the apex or organizing point in the perception of space (which, in turn, implies a
knowledge that one could also be an object in the spatial field of others), as well as a set of
clear-cut distinctions between the inside and the outside of the body, the active and
passive positions, and as we will see, a position as a sexually determinate subject (Grosz,
1994, p. 48).

The excerpt above places the body image as an anchoring point in the relationship constructed

between the libidinal experience of the body, its material characteristics and its place in cultural

life.

Grosz’ (1994) text broadly critiqued the effect that Cartesian dualism has had on the way the

body has come to be understood in the Western tradition. She pointed out that this tradition has

constructed the notion that body is simply that which “is not mind” (Grosz, p. 3). In contrast she

argued that the body needs to be reinterpreted “as a series of processes of becoming, rather

than as a fixed state of being” (p. 12). As such she pointed out that empirical disciplines focusing

on either body or mind, such as psychology, must begin to accept the psychophysical

interconnectedness between the two. In doing so, those disciplines need to organize models and

metaphors that implicate the consciousness of the thinking subject in the construction of the

object we identify as our own body. Within this context her portrayal of the body image is that of
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an organizing point and psychological achievement that establishes the sense of constancy and

stability from which subjectivity can emerge.

Grosz’ (1994) portrayal of the body image is not very different from Schilder’s (1935/1978)

description of dynamic construction. For example, both authors identified the body image as an

emergent process that organizes the continual flow or dialectic of perception in order to enable

one to differentiate actual experience from hallucinatory states. However, Grosz identified more

directly than Schilder the role played by the body image in anchoring one’s sense of spatial,

temporal and causal continuity. Grosz also underscored how the female body has often been

overlooked in many philosophical analyses on to the formation of feminine subjectivity. Both

authors, nevertheless, did implicate the psychological subject in a struggle and effort to build a

veridical experience of physical and psychical self-experience through what is arguably, best

characterized as dynamic construction.

Contrasting the ideas of these authors reveals that Grosz’ (1994) description presented a more

atheoretical perspective in relation to the psychological construction of the body image. Her

discussion placed emphasis on the interface between the social subject and the role of language,

or discourse, in the formation of subjectivity. As such, she highlighted the structural achievements

associated with the emergence of that subjectivity, and placed great importance upon the sexed

body in shaping it. However, she did not describe detail about dynamic activity or the role that

movement plays in the construction of the body image. Nor did she describe how motility

provides the basis upon which the development of subjectivity proceeds. Elsewhere in

philosophy, Rothfield (1992) and Sheets-Johnstone (2002; 2000) have attributed to movement,

and the body that enacts movement, a more central place in human development. Rothfield

(1992) has identified that the quality of one’s movement is central to the character of
3
embodiment .

3
In its philosophical use, embodiment identifies the perception one’s consciousness not simply
as a detached and objective mind, but rather as an embodied experience. That implies that the
body is the condition of one’s mental life, and as Phenomenologists have suggested, is an active
and living expression of that mental life.
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In the treatment and study of psychopathology, psychiatric observers have noted that bodily

experience and movement have a very immediate relationship to each other. For example,

Barale (1997) noted that:

…no psychopathological experience is not expressed, first and foremost, through particular
psychomotoric stamp/imprint, organization or disorganization of movement, of posture, of
tone, of gesticulation, of actions. But they are not only ‘symptoms’ of an experience that
lies elsewhere and has its foundation elsewhere. ‘The psychomotoric behavior constitutes
the very ground of excitement, of anxiety, of depression, of confusional disorder, of
dissociation’ (p. 169).

By contrast, searching the psychological literature for an appreciation of the relationship between

the moving body and body image in normal experience, leads the inquirer to the study of

cognition and aspects of motor control and motor learning, or to the study of posture and

locomotion. This field of study in the discipline attempts to map the cognitive scaffolding through

which human action is made possible. However, this section will attempt to present a

psychological understanding of movement with regard to its subjective and often mindful

experience. The discussion below thereby highlights factors aiding the subjective experience of

movement and the self-referential perception associated with it, especially kinesthetic perception.

3.3.1 Kinesthetic perception

The sensory system directly pertaining to bodily movement is the kinesthetic system. It is part of

the broader musculoskeletal system and thereby part of what Solms and Turnbull (2002)

identified as one of only two subjectively observed systems through which the conscious human

subject establishes an awareness of itself as a body. De Oreo and Williams (1980) gave a broad

description of the kinesthetic system and noted that, like all perception, kinesthetic perception

does not operate in isolation. All sensory systems work in complementarity with others.

Movement is thereby guided by all levels of perception although the kinesthetic system is most

clearly observed in the movement of the body.

The particularity of the kinesthetic system is that it facilitates the integration of information in

relation to gravity and posture for the initiation and performance of movement. It was identified

physiologically by De Oreo and Williams (1980) as afferent signals emitted from muscles,
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tendons, joints and the vestibular system. They added that kinesthetic perception guides bodily

movement through space and that its self-referential character provides feedback to the cortex

regarding voluntary actions. The kinesthetic system mediates the body’s righting reflexes,

supports our capacity to orient in space and helps us maintain an upright posture. It permits the

subtlest of adjustments in posture and action, but usually functions without conscious attention.

These abilities were linked by Sheets-Johnstone (2002) as outlined in Chapter one, to the bodily

ego, which she argued emerges via the kinetic experience of one’s own body, the tactile-

kinesthetic experience of spatiality and the affective experience associated with a sense of

bodilyness.

De Oreo and Williams (1980) further refined their description of the perceptual processing of the

kinesthetic system by distinguishing five abilities. These include kinesthetic acuity, which enables

us to detect the precision and accuracy of movement; kinesthetic discrimination, which permits
4
the discrimination of qualities such as extension, velocity and force; kinesthetic figure-ground

which is the ability to tune into specific stimuli while ignoring others. De Oreo and Williams (1980)

also suggested that the refinement of the kinesthetic figure-ground ability is made possible by the

kinetic melody of movement, which is an integrated experience of the flow of movement as whole

sequences. They also briefly distinguished kinesthetic memory in the development of motor skills,

and followed this with a broad description of kinesthetic localization or body awareness.

3.3.2 The Body awareness and the dynamic body image

It was identified in Chapter one, that the entity Sheets-Johnstone (2002, p. 44) referred to as the

“kinetic/ tactile-kinesthetic/ affective body” could be recognized as having a theoretical

relationship to Schilder’s (1935/1978) dynamic body image, since both concepts identify

4
De Oreo and Williams (1980) noted that the kinesthetic figure-ground capacity demonstrates
the distinction between unskilled bodies and trained ones. The untrained individual either pays
attention to too much detail or inappropriate information (i.e. she displays ‘two left feet’), while the
skilled performer is able to draw from many sources of information and select appropriate
information for the execution of action. The figure-ground ability is different from the other modes
of perception in that attention is focused upon the internal environment of the body rather than
the external world.
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movement as the medium through which they emerge. In this context, the self-referential aspects

of the kinesthetic system can be conceptualized as the human capacity that supports that

medium. The self-referential aspects of the kinesthetic system are described by De Oreo and

Williams (1980) under the heading of kinesthetic localization otherwise referred to as body

awareness.

Body awareness is described by these authors as a hierarchically organized set of cognitive

abilities of the kinesthetic perceptual system that include the body schema, body image, body

insight and body concept. De Oreo and Williams (1980) described body schema as “the sensori-

motor component” of body awareness (p. 182). It is a very basic attribute in the infant but

develops via motor activity until the child learns to maintain upright posture and balance. It is also

that upon which the other aspects of body awareness are built. Body image according to De Oreo

and Williams refers to “the feelings and/or opinions which the child develops about the body” (p.

183). These opinions they suggested form the nucleus of the personality. The developing child’s

spatial awareness of his or her body is important for the development of the image. The

experience of laterality, sensory dominance, handedness, eye-hand preferences and cerebral

dominance all contribute to the way the body image comes together. Body insight was described

by DeOreo and Williams as knowledge about body awareness that does not involve

verbalization. It essentially refers to body awareness demonstrated by “how the body and its

parts move in space” (p. 187). Body concept on the other hand was described as knowledge

about the body that is verbalized. Verbalization they noted is “an important part of the process of

abstracting or internalizing the phenomena of body awareness” (p. 188). However De Oreo and

Williams did not consider body awareness and the kinesthetic system in the context of a

diachronic framework like dynamic construction.

De Oreo and Williams (1980) described the functional abilities underlying the capacity for

movement and gave detail of those abilities as synchronic or structural systems. However, by

locating their discussion of the body image within the context of a description of the kinesthetic

perceptual system, they implied that their ideas have more in common with Schilder’s theory than

they do with structural-functional models on the body image. In particular, their description of the
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body image as a subordinate entity within the conceptualization of body awareness reinforces the

assumption made by Schilder (1935/1978) and Sheets-Johnstone (2002) that human movement

is associated with the ontogenesis of the body image.

As a psychological experience body awareness is an ambiguous one. It has little meaning

without consideration of the human capacity for apperception, and its self-referential and

introspective character means that to observe it in human behavior, that is, to legitimate its face

validity, there must be a theoretical idea to support its existence. Its ambiguity is also

characterized in the notion that it is a cognitive ability that appears only in an act of physical

action. Like dynamic construction, body awareness slips uncomfortably between the categories

we call body and mind. It is awareness, which is an idea associated with thought, and yet its

tangibility is only really clearly identified in the pure physicality of a trained body. The twin

character of body awareness, the role of thought and movement in psychological development is

described below.

3.3.3 The psychological immediacy of kinesthetic perception

Wallon (1879-1962) is associated with developmental psychology in his native France. His work

and ideas emerged in parallel with the rise in popularity of Piaget’s studies, but according to

Voyat (1984), Wallon’s ideas can be differentiated from Piaget’s on three important points. Firstly,

Wallon did not assume as Piaget had that the infant lives in a psychological state akin to autism.

Secondly, Wallon took a more naturalistic approach to his empirical investigation that, thirdly,

permitted him to think more broadly about psychological development. Wallon’s focus went

beyond cognitive development and included the child’s effort to synthesize information about its

physical being and its place within its environment. His paper titled Kinesthesia and the visual

body image in the child (1954/1984) describes the role that experience plays in the psychological

organization of two sensory systems and in the development of a sense of bodilyness.

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In this context Wallon’s (1954/1984) interest in the child’s development focused upon the struggle

by the child to refine his or her understanding of the object world. The excerpt below

characterizes the way Wallon understood the role of a dynamically organized body image.

[The child’s] feeling of being himself, and hence his feeling of reality, is tied to
proprioceptive impressions. His sense that he belongs to an objective order among things,
and that things coexist with one another, depends on visual images… All normal activity
therefore presupposes a tight connection between the kinesthetic and visual
spheres…what we call the body schema may be seen as stretching between these two
poles… The body schema is a necessity. It is called into being by the needs of activity. It is
not given from the outset, nor is it a biological entity. Rather, it is the outcome and
precondition of normal relations between the individual and the milieu (p. 130).

Notably, Wallon (1954/1984) preferred the term ‘schema’ to ‘image’, but his interpretation of that

schema derives from psychological activity he identifies as pertaining to the creation of a sense

of bodilyness. It is clear in his observation of the way the schema comes into being that the

integration of kinesthesia and vision can be linked to what Schilder (1935/1978) referred to as

dynamic construction. The value of Wallon’s description here is that it temporally locates the

development of mind to the child’s capacity to maintain a sense of bodilyness. The relationship

between mind and sense of bodilyness can also be found in psychological literature pertaining to

body awareness in the context of treatment.

3.3.4 Body awareness and psychological treatment

There is a small collection of papers in the broader psychological literature pertaining to research

in treatment settings that identify body awareness as a suitable concept for the treatment and

assessment of psychological conditions. These studies are important because they throw light on

the relationship between movement and psychological experience, but they do not locate the

findings therein within a theoretical context. These studies have been conducted in settings such

as applied behavioral sciences and psychology departments, community medicine, psychiatric

and family medicine and a psychiatric eating disorders unit. In Chapter one, it was argued that

nursing and rehabilitation settings often conceptualize body image in clinical practice as a lens

through which the health practitioner can reflect on his or her clinical style. This approach

presented the versatility of the body image as a dimension of physical health and thus in relation

to one’s experience of the actual body. By contrast, it was also noted (Section 3.2.2) that the
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discipline of psychology does not conceptualize body image in its relationship to physical health

but, as Tiemersma (1989) argued, the actual presence of the body is often eradicated from the

conceptual structure of the body image construct. The review of the studies presented in the

section below, highlights how an alternative conceptualization of the body image that

incorporates the moving body, introduces a holistic perspective not found in the psychological

literature on the body image since Schilder (1935/1978).

Movement therapy is a generalized term applied here to denote a range of exercise-like practices

used in both psychiatric and medical settings for the treatment of any number of conditions. A

brief review of the literature in this field has found a range of movement therapies in use. They

include, physiotherapeutic treatment (Malmgren-Olsson, Armelius and Armelius 2001), Body

Awareness Therapy (BAT) (Friis, Skattboe, Hope and Vaglum, 1989), the Feldenkrais method

(Feldenkrais, 1972), Psychiatric physiotherapy (PPT) (Mattsson, Wikman, Dahlgren, Mattsson

and Armelius, 1997 & 1998; Wallin, Kronovall and Majewski, 2000), Dance movement therapy

(Stanton-Jones, 1992) and Tai Chi (Kutner, Barnhart, Wolf, McNeely & Xu, 1997).

3.3.4.1 Movement therapy and the role of the body image

The studies by Malmgren-Olsson, et al., (2001), Wallin, et al., (2000), Mattsson, et al., (1998 &

1997) and Friis, et al., (1989) each provided insight into the effectiveness of a range of movement

therapies on the outcomes of patients suffering from a range of physical and psychological

conditions. Those studies highlighted also the importance of a broad theoretical understanding of

the body image, incorporating body awareness. Malmgren-Olsson et al. (2001) compared the

effect of Body Awareness Therapy (BAT), Feldenkrais and Treatment as Usual (TAU) on the

experience of patients with musculoskeletal disorders. The most significant finding for this team

of researchers was the effectiveness of both BAT and Feldenkrais as compared with TAU in

alleviating the psychological distress of patients in the sample. The authors noted that

psychological distress is an important predictor in the transformation of acute pain into chronic

conditions associated with musculoskeletal ailments. Their findings showed that both BAT and

Feldenkrais have very specific treatment effects on the experience of psychological distress and
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the authors inferred from this that these movement therapies are thereby more likely to bring

remedial changes in the psychological symptoms related to chronic pain. The authors concluded

that the effectiveness of both BAT and Feldenkrais as compared to TAU derived from the

“theoretically cohesive framework of body and mind” (p. 92) that underpins them. This suggests

that the effectiveness of individual movement therapies lies not simply in the practical techniques,

but more fundamentally in the ontological premise they imply about the relationship between

body and mind. This premise enhances the effectiveness of the physical treatment not simply

because the movements are performed differently, but because the concepts on which the

movement is based can be effective in reorganizing the subjective experience of chronic pain.

Wallin et al. (2000) assessed the effect that Body Awareness Therapy (BAT) may have on

teenage anorexic patients in family therapy. They hypothesized that patients receiving BAT would

fair better than those receiving family therapy only. The study was evaluated according to

outcome variables measured by the Children’s Eating Attitude test (Ch-EAT), the Eating Disorder

Inventory (EDI) and patient’s Body Perception Index (BPI). While these authors noted that their

hypothesis was not upheld and that patients receiving BAT would have better outcomes that

those without it, they emphasized that BAT demonstrated some rehabilitative effect on the

participants in their sample. Specifically, the therapy reduced patients’ drive for thinness as

measured by both the Ch-EAT and the EDI, and improved the degree of body size distortion as

measured on the EDI. Wallin et al. interpreted these results as an indication of the importance of

BAT for the prevention of relapse in young women with body image disturbances. Given the

result of the study by Malmgren-Olsson et al. (2001) cited above it indicated also that the

ontological premise on which BAT is based, may be effective in shifting the intensity of

psychological distress associated with body image disorders.

Mattsson et al. (1997) and (1998) are two parts of the one study that evaluated the effectiveness

of psychiatric physiotherapy (PPT) for female survivors of child sexual abuse. PPT is a

movement therapy that interprets the human body as a carrier of one’s life experiences. Life

experiences “leave their marks upon organs and bodily functions” (p. 281) via the permanent

structural effects imposed upon the central nervous system via the body image. These authors
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described the body image as “the mental projection of one’s body” (1997, p. 281) and an “internal

concept” (1998, p. 40) that is built upon the postural model of the body, perception, attitudes,

emotion and fantasies about one’s own body and its function. The study by Mattsson et al. found

transformations in the body image of their participants that they anticipated would also have a

profound effect upon the psychological and psychosomatic condition reported by the study group.

Friis et al. (1989) investigated the role that Body Awareness Group Therapy (BAGT) has on the

body awareness of patients with personality disorders when measured according to the Body

Awareness Rating Scale (BARS). The group therapy is a physical treatment that, in this study,

was conducted by a physiotherapist in twice weekly sessions over at least twenty weeks. The

most meaningful findings of this study to the current discussion was the suggestion by the

authors that a measure of body awareness is a suitable psychometric device for monitoring “the

treatment process for individual patients” (p. 22) with personality disorders. This reinforces the

idea that one’s sense of bodilyness can be manipulated and that it is a useful concept through

which to understand the process of psychological treatment.

3.3.4.2 Assumptions these studies share with Schilder’s theory

As a preliminary remark, it is important to note that the methods used in the research studies

described above have, to varying degrees, applied techniques associated with positivist

psychology. What gives them unique status as positivist research studies, however, is the

correspondence they appear to have with at least two aspects of Schilder’s (1935/1978) dynamic

theory. The first pertains to paradigmatic concerns.

Each of the authors of the studies described above conceptualized a close relationship between

mind and body that Schilder (1935/1978) underlined in the opening remarks of his monograph.

For example, Mattsson (1997 & 1998) described a fairly specific interpretation of the mind-body

relation in their literature review. Friis et al. (1989), on the other hand, only implied that he and his

co-authors adhered to a holistic interpretation of the mind-body relationship by taking an interest

in the possible effectiveness of movement therapy for personality disorders. Neither paper
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described how that relationship between body and mind might be understood. This rather

atheoretical position is similar to that of Lennox and Lennox (2000), described in Chapter one. In

those remarks Lennox and Lennox indicated that movement and psychological life have an

interleaved relationship, although they did not attempt to explain how that relationship might be

understood from a psychological perspective.

Further paradigmatic concerns pertain to the perspective adopted by the authors of the four

studies described above in relation to their research participants. For example, the point of view

adopted by the authors of those studies demonstrated an epistemology very different from that of

differential-psychometric psychology. For example, the authors of these studies showed a

concern for the physical health of their research participants that suggested an interleaved

relationship between psychology and physical health. As a consequence those studies are

aligned more closely to Schilder (1935/1978) on ontological grounds but demonstrate

epistemological claims similar to those found in research within nursing and rehabilitation

settings.

The second aspect of Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory, with which these studies correspond,

pertains to the way he described the importance of finding the body in the execution of

movement. It can be inferred that the role of the “theoretically cohesive framework of body and

mind” (Malmgren-Olsson et al., 2001, p. 92) serves to give shape to the way the body may be

found by participants in these four studies. For example, the participants were able to improve

their body awareness, that is, find their body in a way far removed from the position or

perspective with which they may have begun.

The relationship between one’s capacity to find the body, that is to improve one’s body

awareness, and the way mind and body are conceived, has implications for the efficacy of

synchronic frameworks when aiming to understand the body image in the context of a moving

body. The role of bodily movement has no place in these frameworks and, as Shipton (1999) has

argued, the instruments used to measure the dichotomous body image often require research

participants to self-objectify rather than find the body. These instruments are developed upon the
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notion that mind and body are separate entities and, according Shipton, are more likely to

intensify the anorexic’s body image disturbance than ameliorate it. Given the findings of the four

studies above, Shipton’s criticisms suggest that differential-psychometric psychology does not

proffer participants or patients with a theoretically cohesive framework through which to

experience the relationship between body and mind, or link them to a psychic attitude that

changes their psychological experience. As a final remark, it is pertinent to note that the positive

influence of the encounter between the practitioner and the research participant described by

Mattsson et al. (1997 & 1998) can be interpreted in light of Schilder’s description of the interplay

between body images.

3.4 The parameters guiding an alternative approach

At this point, it is now possible to summarize the key propositions of Schilder’s (1935/1978)

theory in order to establish a context for a description of the research aims. The discussion

presented in the first three chapters of this thesis identifies the body image construct as being

conceptualized in a far broader way than that adopted by psychological researchers. Limitations

associated with logical positivist research in psychology are presented from a number of

positions, and these highlight failings in the theoretical framework used by the research

enterprise as a whole. Criticisms pertaining to paradigmatic claims by the discipline are

presented in the sections following.

3.4.1 The effect upon the assumptions guiding research in psychology

Rose’s (1997) argument identified psychology as a discipline that has become involved in

redefining human experience, rather than developing practical means by which individuals can

generate their own meaning. His criticism identified the discipline as a homogenizing force that

confines its study of human experience to discrete and often very reductive categories of that

experience. These categories are determined by highly specified methods that are most often

attributed epistemological authority within the discipline. His main argument was that psychology
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has been guilty of foreclosing on the description and analysis of human experience that cannot

be measured. This infers also that the context represented by dynamic processes is disregarded

and overwritten as though a sponge phrase.

It has also been noted that James (1890/1952) identified the possibility of psychologists over

determining their claims about human psychology, in the way Rose (1997) later described.

James argued that psychologists failed to adopt a means by which to protect their empirical

methods from what he identified as very significant sources of error. He argued that the discipline

was likely to promote the construction of inaccurate claims about human psychology if it did not

develop a means by which to recognize the difference between the referents associated with

particular psychological experiences and actual experiences themselves. His argument pointed

to the widespread application of highly specified hypothetical constructs in psychological

research on the body image, which it may be argued, demonstrate how misinterpretation

between the substantive nature of experience and the thing measured needs to be recognized as

a serious a methodological concern.

One of the central issues identified as shaping misinterpretations in body image research, related

to a failure of psychologists in general to recognize the dynamic activity associated with

apperception, and thus the actual presence of the body. This oversight has produced a research

enterprise that overlooks the sense of bodilyness proffered by the constructive energies of the

body image, its plasticity, and its role as a psychological, albeit unconscious record of multiplicity.

Underlying these omissions is the failure of the discipline to reconsider the relation between body

and mind and thus develop a theoretically cohesive framework on the activity of apperception in

the formation of the body image.

3.4.2 The effect upon the scope of research

Psychological research on the body image has made conspicuous omissions of fact in relation to

the nature of the body image that pertained directly to Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory. These

omissions have led to oversights in the interpretation of that theory, which have subsequently

generated over-determined operational definitions that disregard dynamic construction and the
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many levels of perception from which the body image is constructed. As an outcome, the

construct used most often in psychological research has been so acutely refined that its only

advantage is its supposed efficacy in identifying symptoms in both normal and abnormal

populations. As an effect, normal experience has been completely overwritten in the

psychological literature. It has also been argued that such lapses in theoretical rigor have been

propelled in part by suspicion within the discipline with regard to the veracity of psychoanalytic

ideas, and by a methodological laziness pertaining to the heuristic value of theory to research in

general.

The context in which this suspicion has emerged can be traced to the historical division between

neurology and psychoanalysis, the latter being the source from which modern psychiatry

emerged. It was noted that Lennox and Lennox (2002) identified this historical division as being

most arbitrary in the study of movement disorders, since psychological experience and

neurological evidence seem to have demonstrated that a mutually inclusive set of criteria can be

observed between movement disorders and the symptoms associated with psychological

disorders. Movement, it may be suggested, is a point of intersection between psychological

experience and neurological functioning. It was also noted that treatment contexts, such as

nursing and rehabilitation settings and the psychological study of movement therapies, have

shown that body image provides a suitable cross over concept through which practitioners can

explore the relationship between physical and psychological conditions and changes in those

conditions in response to treatment.

3.4.3 The basis for a revision in method for body image research

A central feature of the dynamic body image described by Schilder (1935/1978) was the role he

attributed to movement in dynamic construction. Movement, he suggested, is not simply a set of

biomechanical operations, but is an experiential medium that serves body image construction. It

was noted also that Wallon (1954/1984) recognized the psychological importance of kinesthetic

perception (that perception devoted solely to bodily movement and posture) to the normal

psychological development of the child. Wallon’s work identified also that constructive activity is
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the basis from which such development takes place. It is thus theoretically likely that Schilder’s

theory might provide a cohesive framework through which to explore the constructive aspect of

the body image.

Schilder’s (1935/1978) understanding of movement can thus provide the basis upon which an

alternative approach in the study of the body image might be developed. Tiemersma (1989)

reinforced the pertinence of movement in a philosophical reconceptualization of the body image

and body schema, and underlined the need to “reinforce awareness of the [actual] body” (p. 329).

Added to this he insisted that empirical study be directed to “its dynamics” (p. 329). To do this he

suggested that the study of what he called “movemental training” (p. 330) could provide a point of

focus. Some psychological researches have demonstrated that movement therapies improve the

qualitative experience of the body image. However, in order to explore the relationship between

body image construction and movement Schilder’s theory was considered invaluable. It was thus

necessary to refine core propositions from his theory on the relationship between movement and

body image construction.

3.5 Core propositions of Schilder’s theory concerning movement

Central to Schilder’s (1935/1978) interpretation of the relationship between movement and the

body image is dynamic construction. As explained in Chapter two, dynamic construction provides

the context in which the active process forges a relationship between movement and the body

image. That image or postural model, as Schilder preferred to call it when referring to human

action, is thereby only a very vague experience prior to the initiation of action. However, it

becomes clearer with the execution of movement since the new parts of reality brought to

together through the execution of movement are crystallized. The following are core propositions

within Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory on the nature of the dynamic body image in the context of

movement.
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3.5.1 The active process

The active process is a continual flow of activity that is largely unconscious, but may be implied. It

is through the active process that new information about the body image is assembled. New

information is perceived according to the crystallized points of rest within the activity of dynamic

construction. It may be assumed that new information, in this regard, refers to affective and

tactile-kinesthetic changes resulting from voluntary movement. It is also assumed that these felt

changes are assembled by the active process, which is subtended by the notion of synaesthetic

perception.

3.5.2 The unconscious

For the purpose of the present study, and in quoting Schilder (1935/1978) directly, the

unconscious will refer to any assumption suggesting that “there is in our body image more than

we consciously know about our body” (p. 13), and that would necessarily include “processes

which go on in the background of our minds” (p. 175).

3.5.3 Anticipatory plans

As noted in Chapter two, anticipatory plans organize movement according to at least two sets of

reference points. Anticipatory plans include information regarding the body parts involved in each

action, and secondly the points in space to which those movements are directed. For the purpose

of the present study, anticipatory plans are defined as preemptively organized movement

sequences. These might be structured according to a particular style of movement training or

dance style. Since they are largely tacit experiences of movement and perception, in the present

study they were obviously inferred, rather than strictly observed. It was decided that anticipatory

plans could be inferred when and if participants made reference to the units of their movement,

e.g. the isolations, steps, or movement sequences to which their attention could be directed.
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3.5.4 Finding the body

Schilder (1935/1978) noted that movement could not be initiated without the subject first finding a

point from which to begin. Finding the body is thereby dependent on the way the body image has

been constructed. The inside area of one’s own body can be found through the kinesthetic

system and through the use of ‘pictures’. For the present study, finding the body will be defined

according to both these activities. ‘Picture’ here is Schilder’s term for conceptual materials that

enable “vegetative changes” (p. 178) to be imagined.

3.5.5 Plasticity

The plasticity of the body image is described by Schilder (1935/1978) through the capacity to

have “an almost unlimited number of body-images” (p. 67). Dance loosens the body image and

that loosening enables changes to our “psychic attitude” (p. 208). Thus, for the purpose of the

present study plasticity will be defined as a new psychic attitude that may be recognized via

reflective emotion (see below).

3.5.6 Reflective emotion

Reflective emotion is the narcissistic experience each person has with regard to his or her own

body. If, according to Schilder (1935/1978) we must love our body, then this love or the lack of it

characterizes reflective emotion. From a neuroscientific point of view, emotion is characterized as

the self-perception and evaluation of “the internal milieu of the body” (Solms and Turnbull, 2002,

p. 90). Neuroscience attributes emotion with a visceral quality. However, according to Schilder

(1935/1978) emotion is a social experience. Solms and Turnbull (p. 75) identify it as “the bedrock

of consciousness” and yet it also connects us with humanity. Its relationship to movement

thereby is interpreted here with respect to its role, along with musculo-skeletal/sensorimotor

information (i.e. movement), to provide fundamental psychological information about oneself. It

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has a relationship to movement, to the extent that the quality or intensity of our emotion will effect

the extent to which the felt experience of the body can be held together psychologically.

3.6 Framing the research questions

Much of what has been discussed thus far provides a point of departure for exploring the

empirical effectiveness of Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory. That theory provides a conceptual

foundation making it possible for philosophical problems associated with logical positivist

research methods to be reframed wherein the conceptual split between body and mind may be

reduced or transformed. It also provides the opportunity to explore the body image from the point

of view of the moving body.

3.6.1 The aims of the research

The project presented in the following chapters was an exploratory one. As such qualitative

methods featured strongly. In addition, Schilder’s (1935/1978) assertion that knowledge about the

body image is dependent upon the capacity for motility necessitated that procedural movement

be given a significant role in the research design. The central aim of the study was thus

established to explore the empirical effectiveness and explanatory power of Schilder’s dynamic

body image as it pertains to the execution of procedural movement. The second aim of the

project was to build on Schilder’s theory by exploring participants’ knowledge in the context of

that which was not already accounted for by the dynamic theory.
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3.6.2 Research questions

Following the description of the aims, research questions could be constructed. They were:

1. Do Schilder’s core propositions concerning the relationship between the body image
and movement, furnish empirical inquiry with a viable framework through which to
understand the body image in normal populations?

2. Can the findings of this study be used to build upon Schilder’s theory?
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CHAPTER FOUR

RATIONALE FOR THE METHOD OF THE PRESENT STUDY

This chapter outlines the rationale supporting the methodological choices described in Chapter

five. It first presents a description of criteria guiding the focus of the study. It then presents a brief

description of the historical and socio-political context in which qualitative research has been

applied in psychology. Finally it presents a description of the research paradigm underpinning the

proposed study.

4.1 The criteria guiding the focus of the study

The critical discussion presented in Chapter three, of psychological investigations of body image

that organize criteria according to logical positivist principles, which largely overlook the dilemma

posed by the mind-body problem, represented a departure point for the study of the body image

from an alternative point of view. This alternative point of view is characterized in the present

study by (a) the importance placed upon the application of Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory, (b) the

use of qualitative methods to explore and possibly build on that theory, and (c) a greater

emphasis given to the experience of procedural movement in the formation of the body image.

4.1.1 The importance of theory to the research act

It was argued in Section 3.3.4 of Chapter three that the four Scandinavian studies presented

there, demonstrated that theoretical frameworks incorporating a holistic account of the relation

between the mind and body provide an alternative perspective from which to examine the body

image. Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory was founded upon holistic principles about the relation

between mind and body. He developed this perspective by way of a dynamic and constructive

conceptualization of apperception that was borne of psychological activity across three

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dimensions of body experience. The body image in Schilder’s account is ultimately a dynamic

psycho-physiological entity. It can be understood as the product of an active and generative

interpretation of human perception, encapsulated first in the work of Brentano (1874/1973), but

advanced through Schilder’s neurological and psychoanalytic training.

Schilder’s (1935/1978; 1942) affiliation with and dedication to the advancement of psychoanalytic

ideas can be demonstrated in comments made by him in at least two published works. In his

monograph on the body image he stated that, “[a] psychology which does not utilize the

enormous enlargement of the horizon which Freud and psychoanalysis has achieved, neglects

an innumerable number of important experiences” (1935/1978, p. 9). Later he revisited this and

underlined his dedication to the advancement of psychoanalytic ideas by noting in the preface of

a publication released after his death, that he was “deeply influenced by Freud” (1942, p. ix). In

both works he paid homage to Freud and presented his own ideas as an extension of them,

although his interdisciplinary orientation meant that he was able to observe different kinds of

phenomena to those characterized by psychoanalytic theory. Schilder’s interest in the postural

model of the body, for example, suggested that he had a fascination with the experience of

physical movement, body awareness and their organic basis. But his interest in the body image

suggested also that his empirical attention was also drawn to the subjective awareness of one’s

actual body, including its movement and the dynamic energies involved in the process of self-

apperception in psychological life.

Hence, while Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory provides reasonable answers about the time

relationships between variables in the process of self-apperception, it has limitations. It is thus

important to stress the role that theory and theory building can have in the advancement of all

psychological knowledge, but also to underline that the versatility of theory lies in its capacity to

be modified and extended.

The findings of the four Scandinavian studies described in Chapter three also demonstrated that

the application of a theoretically cohesive framework to the relationship between mind and body

can serve to locate the research act outside the dualist assumptions of logical positivism. Such a
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1
shift might magnify the speculative function of theory or its function as an empirical heuristic and

thus provide a framework through which to analyze findings with respect to relationships between

variables associated with change across time. For example, Ussher (2000) noted that the

hypothetico-deductive model, valued by the logical positivist paradigm and associated with

mental health research in psychology, is often faced with substantial limitations when interpreting

temporal relationships in data. Antecedent variables, she noted, are often difficult to trace using

the hypothetico-deductive model. Discourses describing physical and mental illness according to

risk factors provide only a partial resolution to this difficulty. As an alternative it might be

suggested instead that a priori theory, like Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory of dynamic construction,

can provide reasonable answers about time relationships between variables even though, not

unlike the hypothetico-deductive model, it too has the potential to delimit the kinds of questions

that can be asked and the resolutions that can be offered. It is thus important to stress the role

that theory and theory building can have in the advancement of all psychological knowledge, and

that it represents an often overlooked but complementary approach to the logical positivist

paradigm.

4.1.2 The role of qualitative methods

Given that theory building was the second aim of the present study, and that the hypothetico-

deductive methods usually associated with psychological research largely serve the verification

of existing theory, qualitative approaches were identified as being more appropriate. Qualitative

methods are characterized by small participant samples and in-depth textual analyses of what is

often open-ended inquiry.

1
Draaisma (2000) described the empirical heuristic as a metaphor used in scientific study that
“produces new topics for research” (p. 18). He exemplified the efficacy of the empirical heuristic
by describing how Harvey’s assertion that “the heart is a pump” (p. 18) opened up new topics for
theoretical speculation and empirical investigation on human physiology during the seventeenth
century, because of that metaphorical structure.
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4.1.3 An emphasis upon procedural movement

Human action demonstrates the activity of synaesthetic perception and motor ability. However

movement, a concept more suited to the subjective experience of human action, denotes the

presence of reflective intentionality, a trademark of the body image. Through movement, the

activity of the body image is able to confirm or disconfirm a sense of bodily unity with regard to

space, time and causality. As noted in Chapter three, Grosz (1994) referred to the body image as

an anchoring point. However this anchoring function has been largely overlooked in the

psychological literature, as has been the role of movement in the construction of the body image.

According to Schilder (1935/1978), human motility characterizes what is quintessential to the

constructed body he referred to as the body image.

Movement is represented to conscious experience as a global event. However, this global

experience cannot represent to conscious thought that which lies below the level of conscious

attention. As mentioned previously, Schilder (1935/1978) noted that there are both conscious and

unconscious characteristics associated with one’s self-attention to the body. Under such

conditions the body image can be understood as that which organizes this layered experience.

The volitional movement we execute in going about our daily lives happens unconsciously.

However, it may be assumed that individuals who have trained in procedural movement and/or

who perform their movement in social settings may have a more conscious awareness of the way

they organize that movement. It was deemed appropriate, therefore that one of the conditions

defining the selection of participants in the present study be that individuals be involved in

movement performances in some professional capacity. Such individuals, it was assumed, would

have greater conscious awareness of the movement they execute and therefore have more to

say about it. Procedural movement was thus identified as the medium through which participants

would be asked to reflect upon the history of their feeling and thinking experience pertaining to

the body.
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4.2 Qualitative methods in context

The wider application of qualitative methods in psychological research has emerged over the last

twenty years, but not without controversy. The quantitative versus qualitative debate across the

social sciences in general has been taken up within the discipline of psychology, and qualitative

methods have been held up to scrutiny, against parameters defined by logical positivism and

most specifically a professional model attributed to the psychologist that is variously referred to

as the scientist-practitioner or scientist-professional. This model is the benchmark used within the

discipline to guide professional training and practice. In the last decade or so, however it too has

received criticism for its role in organizing conformity within the profession rather than expertise

(John, 1988; 1994). This critique derives from the ideas described by Kuhn (1970), who

suggested that investigative work conducted by scientists often supports consensus building or

justifications, rather than simply empirical investigation and discovery.

The relevance of Kuhn’s (1970) argument to the profession of psychology and the function

served by the scientist-practitioner model, is that it highlights that quantitative methods can be

used to build and bolster hegemony, or a “context of justification” to the same extent that they

construct a “context of discovery” (Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p. 25). In Australia, John (1992; 1994)

has used this observation to argue that the emphasis given to research methods of the positivist

tradition in the training of psychologists has divorced the profession as a whole from its practical

wisdom. He used Kuhn’s argument to point out that, within psychology, justificatory research is

often received as heuristic study. This he suggested has produced a body of knowledge that

obstructs a declarative understanding of its own practical wisdom in preference for the

construction of rhetoric.

Social scientists outside psychology (Denzin & Lincoln, 2003; Patton, 2002a) have noted that the

quantitative versus qualitative debate has given way to an acceptance of multiplicity in the

methods available to the social scientist. In psychology however, the distinction between

quantitative and qualitative data has often been used to differentiate and rank the veracity of

psychological evidence. This has created a split within the discipline not dissimilar to the division
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described by Kaplan-Solms and Solms (2000) that emerged within neurology upon Freud’s

authoring of psychoanalysis. The correspondence lies in the structure of the criteria to which

each investigative approach directs its observation. For example, qualitative methods and

psychoanalysis each focus upon idiographic knowledge (i.e. what is unique to each person),

while quantitative methods and neurological studies support the generation of nomothetic ideas

(i.e. generalizations for populations and universal laws).

4.2.1 The shape of qualitative methods available to psychological research

Denzin and Lincoln (2003) suggested that the task of defining one’s research practice must take

into account the historical context in which it is located. The remarks above aim to establish the

place from which the application of qualitative methods within psychology might be reasoned.

They offer a perspective from which psychological research may be conducted without disturbing

the context of discovery.

Qualitative methods present an opportunity to understand what is unique to each person. The

application of interview techniques in empirical study in psychology may not have a very

extensive tradition within the discipline, but as a shared human interaction based upon the co-

construction of knowledge, it corresponds closely with the professional practice of the discipline

of psychology. Qualitative methods are, as Denzin and Lincoln (2003) suggested, “material

practices that make the world visible” (2003. p. 4) and as such they transform reality (i.e. the

data) for exactly the same reason that quantitative procedures transform reality. Each

reconstitutes that reality in such a way so as to make it visible in a unique way. Qualitative

methods can thus be applied as one means by which to attain, what John (1994) identified as a

more satisfactory epistemology for psychological practice.

Qualitative practices available to researchers in psychology come in numerous forms. Patton

(2002a, p. 265) listed “phenomenology, ethnomethodology, ethnography, hermeneutics, symbolic

interactionism, heuristics, critical theory, realism, grounded theory and feminist inquiry”. Choice

amongst these he suggested is determined largely by the audience to which the research is
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directed and according to the purpose of the research. The audience organizes the way we

establish the criteria for investigation. The purpose of our research lends shape to the way we

frame our specific questions.

In sum, the material practices of qualitative research serve the researcher best when they keep

both the audience and the purpose of the research in mind, but qualitative methods must also

demonstrate an empirical formality. This formality is acquired when the research act is clearly

defined by premises that identify the paradigm within which they are applied. The paradigm

adopted establishes the basic beliefs about the empirical world upon which the act of research is

founded. Guba (1990) identified four paradigms suitable for social research. These are (a)

realism (i.e. positivism), (b) post-positivism, (c) critical theory and (d) constructivism.

4.2.1.1 Realism

According to Guba (1990), realism is characterized by the premises more formally associated

with the physical sciences. In psychology, these premises identify reality as knowable to the

extent that the researcher assumes that he or she can get close to participants’ understanding of

reality. The content of a qualitative interview is thereby interpreted as a factual account of reality

and the researcher uses the interview material to build as thorough an understanding of that

reality as is possible.

4.2.1.2 Post-positivism

Post-positivism is characterized by premises that state that reality exists, but that it cannot be

fully apprehended. These premises identify reality as knowable only to the extent that it is context

dependent. In social research post-positivism is characterized by the naturalistic standpoint

(Lincoln & Guba, 1985). The content of naturalistic inquiry is therefore understood as an accurate

account of reality given the nature of the context. The social researcher uses the material
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practices of social research to build a clear understanding of what the participant identifies as

real, as well as to build an appreciation of the context in which that reality is described.

4.2.1.3 Critical theory

Critical theory is characterized by the same premise asserted by post-positivism that states that

reality exists but cannot be fully apprehended. In addition however, critical theory also permits

subjectivist values to guide the nature of research. This means that the values of the researcher

(e.g. whether feminist or post-colonial) are actively used to construct the standpoint from which

the research is conducted and interpreted, rather than be set aside in favor of an objectivist value

system. Critical theory thereby identifies reality as knowable within the context of the subjective

values held by the researcher, and recognizes that those values partially construct the interaction

associated with the research process. Critical inquiry thus acknowledges the co-constructed

nature of the knowledge we recognize as being accurate. The researcher informed by critical

theory uses the material practices of social research to build an appreciation of that co-

constructed reality.

4.2.1.4 Constructivism

Constructivism, or social constructionism, was characterized by Guba (1990) as a paradigm in

which multiple perspectives on reality may be anticipated, and where inquiry aims to demonstrate

that research can only ever produce a partial understanding of reality. In practise, this means that

the constructivist researcher is reflexively aware of his or her own values, and explicitly

underlines them as a means by which to frame the basis of any analyses. In effect, this produces

research that claims to contribute rich detail, but characterizes that detail as but one point of

view. Constructivist research also focuses upon the historical and cultural specificity of all

knowledge, and in so doing aims to bring to light the effect that all forms of discourse have on the

construction of knowledge and the understanding individuals construct about themselves.

Constructivism seeks to understand the values and beliefs within which facts about reality are
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organized, and to interpret that reality in light of those beliefs. By taking this position,

constructivism is able to demonstrate the relative nature of knowledge we identify as accurate or

factual, and thereby capture the context in which the researcher and the researched build their

interaction.

Ussher (2000) and Pilgrim and Bentall (1999) have acknowledged that social constructionism

provides an important critical lens through which to examine the overly realist and taken-for-

granted ideas that form the basis of psychological knowledge. However, both also added that

constructivist approaches present an unusually hard-line perspective that has the potential to

leave many questions unanswered. Ussher, for example, described how social constructionism

often creates the problem of identifying whether psychological phenomena exist at a material

level at all. The experience of mental illnesses, she noted, is often couched by social

constructionist accounts as being simply “a social label or category” (Ussher, p. 82) rather than a

felt reality. Where constructivist theory identifies the social forces shaping what is selected as a

symptom in the nosology of mental illness, it cannot demonstrate or explore anything about the

intrapsychic experience of actual illnesses. This, Ussher noted, is a conundrum facing critics of

psychology and those within the discipline using constructivist models. She also argued that this

conundrum may be resolved by adopting a position whereby the disadvantages of both logical

positivism and social constructionism can be overcome. Ussher argued for research in

psychology to be based upon critical realism.

4.2.2 Critical realism

Ussher (1999) considered that critical realism is a most suitable approach through which to

reconcile the disadvantages of logical positivism and social constructionism, since it “affirms the

existence of reality” (p. 107), a realist position, while also acknowledging that the representations

used within disciplines such as psychology often mediate the interpretation of that reality. Critical

realism, she argued, does not delimit empirical research either to the strictly defined procedures

traditionally associated with the scientist-practitioner model and logical positivism, or to qualitative

approaches. Rather, it supports the application of any suitable approach amongst a variety
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available, qualitative or quantitative, appropriate to the questions being asked. In this way it

acknowledges both the audience to which research is addressed and the research purpose.

Critical realism, she added, does not set out to predict cause and effect relationships, but sets out

to explain and describe the object of study in a way that might improve psychological knowledge

of phenomena like body image. Pilgrim and Bentall (1999) capture the advantages of this

paradigm in the following:

In a critical realist account it is not reality which is deemed to be socially constructed,

rather it is our theories of reality, and the methodological priorities we deploy to investigate
it. Our theories and methods are shaped by social forces and informed by interests... Thus
deconstruction [afforded by constructivism] has a part to play in this exercise, but human
science should not be reduced methodologically to this position alone. (p. 262)

Critical realism provides a viable position from which to conduct critically informed empirical study

in psychology, because it makes it possible to apply theoretical ideas, while acknowledging the

comparative merit of all competing theories in psychology as being social productions. It also

provides scope to address a psychological audience from both a critical and theoretically

informed position.

Critical realism reminds the researcher that expert knowledge in psychology as elsewhere, offers

only one version of reality while, in what Ussher (1999, p. 109) identified as its “most radical

premise”, it also acknowledges “the legitimacy of lay knowledge”. This final remark identifies the

relativity of knowledge, in that both lay knowledge and expert knowledge are open to the scrutiny

of constructivist critique. This parity between the expert and the lay person supports a rationale

for an examination of the relationship between lay knowledge and existing theory on the body

image, within a context of discovery organized by qualitative methods.

4.3 The paradigm employed by the present study

The discussion presented in Sections 4.1 and 4.2 above established the basis upon which the

paradigm employed by the present study was designed. A research paradigm is composed of a

set of assumptions. These assumptions guide the way the empirical world is defined in any

particular research enterprise and, according to Punch (1998), set limits on what constitutes
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appropriate topics for research, as well as defining the appropriate techniques for its conduct.

The research paradigm adopted for the present inquiry carries a distinctive mix of assumptions

with regard to the ontology, hermeneutic, epistemology and methodology considered appropriate

to studying a dynamic body image.

4.3.1 Assumptions concerning ontology

The ontology adopted for this study is shaped by the critical realist stance. This implies that

theory in psychology, as elsewhere, cannot present phenomena from an unbiased or objectivist

set of parameters, but is always a social and thereby political act (Von Glasersfeld, 1988;

Gergen, 1993; and Pilgrim and Bentall, 1999). The relative value of any theory to the production

of knowledge in psychology must therefore be evaluated according to its social value. Gergen

(1993) argued that the primary criterion shaping the social value of psychological knowledge is its

capacity to promote social communication between differentiated points of view. The parity

attributed by critical realism to both lay and expert knowledge provides the basis for

communication between theory and everyday life. The structure of this communication is

described in greater depth under the assumptions concerning epistemology.

A second assumption concerning ontology pertains to the compatibility of the critical realist

stance with the notion that ideas can be organized according to either diachrony or synchrony. As

described in Chapter one, the dyadic relationship between diachrony and synchrony implies that

there is always a limit to the explanatory power of one theory or framework, and that that limit is

preserved by its organization. It was noted in Chapter two that Schilder (1935/1978, p. 174) was

concerned to describe body image not simply as a structural entity, but as a process of

“structuralization”. The present study thereby gives primacy to diachrony as it pertains to the

body image, while synchronic criteria take a background place as indicators of dynamic activity.
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4.3.2 Assumptions concerning the hermeneutic

The hermeneutic organizes the parameters through which empirically observed phenomena are

interpreted and is most clearly identified as the designated theory or specific definitions used to

guide observation.

4.3.2.1 Theoretical considerations

As described in Section 3.4, the present study took Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory as the primary

hermeneutic. From the point of view of critical realism, Schilder’s theory must be regarded as

only one theoretical option in a range of possible frameworks suitable for the study of the body

image. Nevertheless, theory in general serves qualitative inquiry well since, as Wolcott (2001, p.

81) pointed out, it can provide inquiry with “a way of asking that is guided by a reasonable

answer”. Theory, he added, is also important for qualitative researchers since it provides a

conceptual structure through which to frame the accumulated research findings or multiple

authors. In the study of the body image, Schilder’s theory was deemed appropriate since it

provided an alternative framework on the body image and contained key components through

which the final data set could be interpreted.

One aspect of Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory that requires qualification is the way he marked his

observation of dynamic construction through synchronic information. In Chapter one it was

explained that synchrony represents the organization of information according to the co-presence

of phenomena. Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory observed a process, but he recognized the activity

of that process through shifts in synchronic information, which he referred to as Gestalten (pl.).

This term represented for him the continuous effort to apprehend one’s body as a whole form or

composite image. His use of the word gestalt was not necessarily a reflection of technical ideas

found in Gestalt psychology, but as a native speaker of German, he was able to apply this word

without it necessarily having references to psychological jargon. In this thesis, therefore, the word

‘gestalt’ is not used. In English there is a tendency for gestalt to have a direct link to Gestalt

theory. There is no single word or phrase in English that is equivalent to its German meaning,
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and so to avoid confusion this study employs the term “organizing point”, a phrase employed by

Grosz (1994, p. 48), rather than gestalt, when marking phenomena that were synchronically

organized.

4.3.2.2 Definitions

In addition to the central place of theory in the assumptions of this study, were definitional

parameters drawn up at the start of the project. The first of these pertained to the term

‘movement’. Following from Tulving’s (1985) study of human memory, movement in this study

was defined as a type of long-term memory, and referred to specifically as procedural knowledge.

Procedural knowledge is the knowledge of how something is done and is often compared to

declarative knowledge, which is an understanding of facts. Reber (1985, p. 401) noted that the

British philosopher Ryle referred to procedural knowledge as “knowing how”.

The second of these definitional constraints pertained to the term performance. Following

Goffman’s (1959) description of the structure of performances, this idea was identified as:

…the activity of an individual which occurs during a period marked by his [sic] continuous
presence before a particular set of observers and which has some influence on the
observers. (p. 19)

According to Goffman, the framing of the performance is constrained by conventions about the

nature of the setting, the front presented by performers and the social conventions associated

with tact and ritual in performances. These conventions come together for the performer and

audience as the “command of an idiom” (p. 65). Performances enacted by the participants in the

present study were thus defined according to the interrelationship between an individual and a

set of observers. This definition thus associates performance not simply with artistic events, but

also with very ordinary settings of everyday life.

In his later text, Goffman (1974) elaborated further on the structure of social performance by

attending more closely to the nature of the frames used in demarcating one kind of performance

off from others found in social situations. Specifically, he identified what he referred to as the
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“keys” (p. 43) or social conventions that are required to institute social frames of a specific

structure. The drawn curtain and proscenium arch characteristic of theatrical settings, represent

one style of key used to denote the quality of performances enacted therein.

Goffman’s (1974) description of frames deals more closely with the structure of social situations

than his previous work, and the characteristics within each situation that make one a synonym of

or a departure from everyday life. Of note, he described the means by which play and playfulness

is delimited and clarified according to the way a setting is designed and organized across time

and space. The demarcation of play and playfulness includes such settings as those set aside for

the appreciation of the arts, competitive tournaments, ceremonies and, even, psychotherapy.

Frames are thus often established by way of implied social arrangements, but they may also

have a designated spatial context.

4.3.3 Assumptions concerning epistemology

The epistemological position adopted in the present study structured the nature of the

relationship between the researcher and the interview participants in this study. The critical realist

stance has already foreshadowed that lay and expert knowledge should be judged equally. The

epistemology of naturalistic inquiry was thereby adopted as the centrepiece for the epistemology,

since it enables the researcher to gather data from real world contexts, that is settings in which

lay knowledge is abundant. Lincoln and Guba (1985) described naturalistic inquiry as an

approach that attends to the task of data gathering in an open and flexible way. The naturalistic

standpoint encourages in the researcher a non-manipulating response to his or her object of

research, and thereby provides an opportunity for the researcher to discover reality from the

participant’s point of view (i.e. an emic perspective). Naturalistic inquiry contrasts greatly with the

nomothetic and etic tradition generally associated with logical positivist research methods used in

psychology.
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4.3.4 Summary

The paradigm described above embodies the value system that gave shape to the many choices

made during the development of the present study. It informed the composition of the research

aims and research questions in the first place, and influenced many decisions that were made

when choosing the techniques considered appropriate for an exploration and analysis of the

phenomenon referred to as the dynamic body image. These values are influenced by and

correspondingly impress upon the substantive theory, but above all they acknowledge the central

importance of that theory in framing the research questions and aims of the present inquiry.
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CHAPTER FIVE

METHOD

This chapter describes the methodological choices made in the implementation of the

investigation. It presents a description of the conceptual framework guiding the research act, the

research design, the data collection instruments and procedures, and finally the plan for the data

analysis.

5.1 The conceptual framework guiding the research act

Chapter four presented the paradigmatic basis upon which the present study was designed. The

conceptual framework has a more applied quality and, according to Punch (1998), is an

integrated set of ideas that lend direction to research. In the present study, the conceptual

framework was grounded within the epistemology described in Section 4.3.3 above. Adopting a

naturalistic standpoint presupposes that the data is gathered from a real world context and that it

emerges out of a social interaction. The participants’ role within that interaction was anticipated to

be that of knowledge bearers who would be asked to share their knowledge by way of a semi-

structured set of questions and probing by the interviewer-researcher in the context of an in-

depth interview.

5.1.1 Interviewing in psychological research

Minichiello, Aroni, Timewell, and Alexander (1990, p. 93) described in-depth interviewing as an

egalitarian “encounter between informant and researcher” wherein the interviewee’s rich

description is the most highly valued product of that interaction. The notion of richness refers both

to the amount of detail elicited by the conversational style employed by the interviewer and to the

density and complexity of the participant’s contribution, to accurately portray specified life

experiences. Minichiello et al. noted also that in-depth interviewing was suitable for exploratory
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studies and theory building because it facilitates understanding in the field of study, rather than

sets out to test hypotheses. This technique is suited to psychological research in particular,

because it enables investigators to study empirical phenomena not open to direct observation,

through accessing interviewees’ words and ideas.

The disadvantages of in-depth interviewing revolve around its susceptibility to procedural bias

imposed by either the interviewer or the participant. For example, Minichiello et al. (1990) noted

that the direction of the in-depth interview is open to the vagaries of the participants’

interpretations and their descriptions of reality. They noted that the interviewer might similarly,

consciously or unconsciously use his or her role to subvert participants’ attempts to convey a

genuine account. These two types of procedural bias can be delimited during the in-depth

interview through the use of two strategies. First, in the situation where the participant may shape

the direction of the interview, a focus can be provided into the flow of the conversation through

the use of a semi-structured interview schedule. In the second instance, greater flexibility may be

introduced into the flow of the interview through the approach referred to as recursive

interviewing. These are described below.

5.1.2 Semi-structured interviews

Semi-structured interview protocols are like structured interviews in that both are recognizable as

a list of questions. However, they differ in the way those questions are used. Minichiello et al.

(1990) described semi-structured interviews as a list of topics without fixed wording or ordering

for the questions. Those questions are characteristically open-ended so as to draw attention to

areas of interest rather than to precisely control the flow of the interview. In other words, semi-

structured interviews are used as a guide by the interviewer to permit him or her to probe and

follow up in considerable depth leads that were not anticipated prior to the interview.
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5.1.3 A recursive model of interviewing

The recursive approach to interviewing has been characterized by Minichiello et al. (1990, p. 104)

as a technique used in in-depth interviewing where “the interviewer follows normal conversational

interaction allowing the flow of conversation to direct the research process”. In other words the

recursive model relies upon the way conversation flows in everyday life, where one remark leads

to the next. The task and skill of the interviewer lies in his or her ability to determine when to

probe and when to ask a new question.

5.2 The research design

Against the background of the critical realism paradigm, the naturalistic standpoint, semi-

structured interview protocol and the recursive approach to interviewing established the

conceptual framework and provided a technical basis upon which the overall design of the

present study was shaped. These methodological practices helped to clarify the premises upon

which to build and conduct an exploration of Schilder’s (1935/1978) assumptions about the

dynamic body image, and were thereby the underlying factors determining the sampling and

recruitment for the research.

5.2.1 Sampling

As stated in Section 4.1 above, it was planned that the study would explore Schilder’s

(1935/1978) dynamic theory by studying the experience of movement by people involved

professionally in the practice of body movement. The target group for this study was identified

according to three characteristics. They were to be (a) women at or over the age of eighteen

years who (b) were specialists in one of three styles of movement and (c) performed that

movement. As a small sample would permit the collection and analysis of rich descriptions, a

sample of five from each movement style would be sought, totaling fifteen participants overall.
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5.2.1.1 Women participants

The criterion restricting participants to women was largely a design choice. Choosing to interview

only women could ensure that data analysis would be a considerably simpler task than if both

sexes were included in the study. Underlying this decision were supporting ideas pertaining to the

role of the sexed body in the construction of the body image and gendered subjectivity.

From a philosophical stance, Gatens (1996) argued that much of what is understood about the

body image in psychoanalytic theory contains a sweeping androcentric bias. Lacan’s (1949/1977)

account of the mirror stage, she noted, and arguably the assumptions underlying structural-

functional models within the discipline of psychology, present an overly scopophilic point of view

of the body. The emphasis Lacan placed upon visible markers in defining the unity of the body,

she argued, assumed that “the child sees its wholeness before it feels its wholeness...” (p. 33).

Gatens wrote:

…[T]here is something particularly masculine about [the] privileging of sight over all the
other senses, such as the tactile, which it is suggested, is more closely aligned with the
feminine… Yet in this very insistence on the privileging of the seen and the visible lurks the
archaic defence mechanism of disavowal. Freud describes disavowal as a process which
allows both denial and acknowledgement to operate simultaneously. The subject
entertains two conflicting or contradictory ideas at once: one idea acknowledging ‘reality’;
the other denying it…(p. 33).

It is notable that Lacan’s (1949/1977) description of the mirror stage was evaluated by Gatens

(1996) as a disavowal of what, in neuroscientific circles, has been identified as the supramodal

perceptual system. The unity of the bodily ego of the female and thus feminine subjectivity,

Gatens argued, is far more aligned to the tactile. Not all authors in the psychodynamic field,

however, have taken this scopophilic, or masculine, point of view on the formation of the body

image.

Notably, Deutsch (1944, p. 135) reinforced the pertinence of both the tactile and kinesthetic

sensory systems in her identification of the role of “inner perception” and in the development of
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1
what she referred to as “feminine intuition” . The capacity for inner perception, Deutsch argued,

was organized more clearly in females, since girls’ recognition of the specificity of their

reproductive organs requires them to ‘look’ inward.

Erikson (1968) later reinforced the correspondence Deutsch (1944) made between the girl’s

integration of her sexual and reproductive organs, and the construction of her body image

through the concept of “inner space”. Erikson’s first description of inner space suggested that it

derived from the cumulative experience of having a female body. However, he later qualified his

assertion that inner space was specific to the female body, by highlighting that males and

females “make use of, …share, and at times…imitate the [body image] configurations most

typical of the other sex” (Erikson 1975, p. 233). In this way he refined inner space as the

construction of the body image through one’s most immediate perceptual experience and thus,

while emphasizing that females are physically organized to recognize this more directly than

males, he noted that men are able to observe this perceptual experience as well. However he

qualified this in noting that males are most likely to acquire the capacity for inner perception

through what Schilder (1935/1978) referred to as body image interplay.

Body image research pertaining to the sexual specificity of the female body, and particularly that

pertaining to inner space, has had little popularity in the English speaking world. However, one

study conducted by Amann-Gianotti, Di Prospero and Nenci (1989) illustrated that, when the

body image is studied with respect to sexual specificity and the activity of inner perception or self-

-apperception, it is constructed in a way very different from that inferred by structural-functional

models. Amann-Gianotti, et al. (1989), influenced by Kestenberg (1968) and Erikson (1964 &

1968), suggested that the internal location of the female sexual organs, that is, the non-visible

nature of the vagina and uterus, not only affects the quality and intensity with which 11 to 18

1
Deutsch (1944) conceptualized “feminine intuition” through the German word Einfühlung, which
in English is often translated as empathy. She wrote: “…Einfühlung…depends on the richness of
one’s own emotional experiences, which underlie the ‘inner perception’ or the ability to
understand one’s own feelings and psychologic relations and, by analogy, those of others. This
brief definition of intuition describes an ability that is to a high degree characteristic of women”
(1944, p. 136-7).
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year-olds relate to their body image, but also the rate with which they are able to integrate the

specificity of their sexual and reproductive body into their body image.

5.2.1.2 Specialists in movement

The present study aimed to sample specialists in one of three styles of movement. They would

be recruited according to their training in either (a) contemporary dance (b) Middle-eastern dance

(often referred to as belly dance) or (c) aerobics, as an instructor. At the time the research design

began to crystallize these three styles of movement were considered different enough from one

another to suppose that specialists of each might have different ways of understanding the body

image. Schilder (1935/1978) had identified movement as a significant influence on the

construction of the body image, and thereby it could be supposed that each movement style

might conceivably structure the body image differently.

In addition to these parameters, it was also identified that movement had an ontogenetic

relationship to the sexed body of women. This position described in the literature on Dance,

directly underscores the discussion on the sexual specificity of the participants described in

Section 5.2.1.1 above. In that literature it has been suggested that, not only is inner perception on

the side of the female body, but the dancer is also. S. Gardner (1996) wrote that:

Really, the ‘dancer’ has never been ‘neutral’, but has always been on the side of the
feminine (other of masculinity). There is, however, within the broad field of ‘dance’, a
constellation of practices, of projects of the body in which the feminine of the dancer is
being redefined… Through these practices the dancing feminine becomes, perhaps, more
a woman…(p. 58).

Adding to this she noted:

Through Irigaray, I’ve come to understand how the image, like the word, always involves a
repression, and that in patriarchy what is repressed is always ‘woman’ (and women):
movement as movement is on the side of women (p. 58).

Dance in this excerpt, is intimately connected with the body image construction of women.

However, it is important to note that S. Gardner’s (1996) discussion was made within a particular

academic discourse that conceptualizes dance practices in a highly specific way. It is not the

intention here to dilute or transform that very particular understanding of movement and dance,
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but to explore the parameters she outlines on the status of movement in relation to the sexed

body, as a means by which to explore the relationship between body image and movement.

5.2.1.3 Performances

The third consideration for the participant sample was that participants had experience

performing their chosen movement to a public or audience. Performances were defined

according to the symbolic interactionism of Goffman (1959), described in Section 4.3.2.2 above,

and circumscribed performance as a social interaction in which a public implicitly acknowledges

the presence of the solo performer, in order to save the show. The parameters of participants’

fullest performance, however, would be determined by the participants themselves and according

to the kind of experiences they each liked to expect. The performance of movement was thus a

feature to be shared by all the participants.

5.2.1.4 Qualitative sampling techniques

This study set out to use intensity sampling techniques and snowballing in order to obtain the

final group. According to Patton (2002b), intensity sampling locates information-rich cases within

specified settings. This would be appropriate for recruiting participants from the health and fitness

industry and from the dance community where clubs, centres and studios provide a location from

which to begin. Snowballing has been described by Miles and Huberman (1994) as an effective

way to locate cases within specified fields of study, because it locates information-rich cases

through people who know where those information-rich cases are. Snowballing was considered

for recruitment of participants here because each interviewee could be asked whether they knew

of anyone else that might be interested in participating in the project.

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5.2.2 Recruitment

Initial contacts with possible participants were to be arranged using intensity sampling of: (a)

inner suburban dance classes (b) women’s fitness centres and (c) contacts through the State of

Victoria funded “Ausdance” organization. Contact with each organization required cold calling.

Cold calling involved introducing the first respondent of the phone call to the study and inquiring if

persons within that organization fitted the profile targeted by the study. The first respondent

would be given a brief introduction to the aim of the research and what participants’ contributions

would entail, as set out as “Recruitment script” in Appendix I. In the case of fitness centres, this

first respondent was the centre manager.

Contact with persons fitting the sample profile would then be organized in one of two ways. The

first required each organization contacted by cold calling to pass on a message to any persons

they identified as fitting the sample profile. The first respondent to the cold calling (i.e. centre

manager or receptionist) would be given the telephone contact details of the researcher and a

brief verbal description of the project. The second approach would use the snowballing technique

described in Section 4.6.1.4 above. This was to involve asking participants to pass on information

about their participation in the study to one of their associates, and if the person were interested,

provide the contact details of that person to the researcher.

5.3 Data collection instruments

Two methods of data collection were chosen for the present study. Firstly, in order to gain a

general description of the nature of the sample in relation to details relevant to body image, the

Multidimensional Body-Self Relations Questionnaire (MBSRQ) (Brown, Cash & Mikulka, 1990),

presented as Appendix II, was selected. The second method, and primary technique used for

data collection, was to be a semi-structured interview presented as Appendix III.

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5.3.1 The body image scale

The MBSRQ is a self-report inventory that enables the researcher to assess the valence

attributed to three domains of body experience (i.e. appearance, fitness, and health/illness). As

an assessment tool, the MBSRQ is expected to provide a view on the “attitudinal disposition [on

the] physical self” (Cash, 1994, p. 1). This attitudinal disposition has been standardized for

female and male normal populations in the United States. Its applicability to this project was to be

as a standard on the characteristics of the sample in relation to specified aspects of the body

image defined within the discipline of psychology.

At the time the research was undertaken, the MBSRQ had been reported by Thompson, Penner

and Altabe (1990) to be the most widely validated instrument of its kind. They also described it as

the most comprehensive and psychometrically sound. Its internal consistency had been found at

between .75 and .91. Thompson, et al. reported that the test-retest reliability for the MBSRQ had

been established at between .78 and .94. Normative data were made available with the User’s

Manual (Cash, 1994a). However, it should be noted that these norms were constructed from data

collated in the United States. No Australian norms were available. There were thus limits to what

could be inferred from the MBSRQ.

In spite of these limitations it was considered that the MBSRQ was pertinent to this study since it

might serve to locate the qualitative findings within the context of structural-functional ideas in

psychology. Its strength was that it provided a framework through which to interpret an attitudinal

disposition for each participant with regard to certain aspects of the body image and thus

organize information about a set of psychological dimensions attributed to normal experience,

rather than psychological disturbance.

The MBSRQ has sixty-nine items, each requiring a response on a 5-point Likert scale. The

measurement of attitude items is structured as 1-definitely disagree to 5-definitely agree, of

behavior items as 1-never to 5-very often, of perception items as 1-very underweight through 3-
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normal weight to 5-very overweight and of evaluation items as 1-very dissatisfied to 5-very

satisfied. The ten sub-scales generated are described as follows:

(a) Appearance Evaluation relates to feelings associated with physical attractiveness,

unattractiveness, satisfaction or dissatisfaction.

(b) Appearance Orientation relates to the level of importance placed upon appearance.

(c) Fitness Evaluation relates to whether one feels physically fit or unfit.

(d) Fitness Orientation refers to the level of emotional investment in feelings of fitness or
athleticism.

(e) Health Evaluation relates to a sense that the body is free from physical illness or to
feelings of positive health and a sense of wellbeing.

(f) Health Orientation relates to the extent to which ‘healthy lifestyle’ ideas shape
conscious activity.

(g) Illness Orientation relates to the intensity of the feelings associated with any physical
symptoms including the tendency to apply for medical attention.

(h) Body-areas Satisfaction relates satisfaction or dissatisfaction with discrete areas of the
body.

(i) Self-classified Weight relates to how one perceives and labels one’s weight from ‘very
underweight’ to ‘very overweight’.

(j) Overweight Preoccupation relates to ideas that reflect the level of vigilance used in
activities pertaining to a preoccupation with weight like a restraint on eating or
persistent dieting.

Each subscale had a range of items allocated. Each subscale was computed according to the

criteria outlined in the User’s Manual (Cash, 1994a). For example, the compute statement for

Fitness Evaluation was listed as (B24 - B33 + B51 + 6) / 3. Each subscale was computed

according to its specified statement.

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5.3.2 The semi-structured interview protocol

The semi-structured interview protocol or the interview guide, presented as Appendix III, was

developed specifically for the present study to elicit accounts of experience of the body in

movement. It comprises open-ended questions that would enable the researcher to maintain

consistency between the interviews and a focus during each one. The topics covered by the

interview guide were organized around two sections. The first pertained to movement and the

second dealt with settings influencing performances and actual performances. Overall it

permitted an exploration of the dynamic body image through interview questions asked about

participants’ knowledge of their movement. That knowledge would be of unknown character, but

according to Schilder (1935/1978), is brought about through their movement. As discussed in

Chapter two above, movement encourages the development of insight into the body image in a

way that is as yet undocumented in the discipline of psychology.

Questions in the protocol were constructed to maximize the level of detail in participants’

responses. Some questions explore the knowledge that participants may feel they have acquired

through their movement. In these questions, movement was interpreted as procedural knowledge

and thereby a form of memory. Questions in the protocol also set out to maximize opportunities

to compare participants’ responses both within and between groups. One of the most important

considerations guiding the construction of the interview protocol was that all questions should

strictly avoid ideas that might encourage participants to focus on their body as an object.

Emphasis upon movement, according to Schilder (1935/1978), was expected to elicit an

understanding of the body image, but would not require participants become overly conscious of

their bodily appearance during the interview.

The first questions were general, asking participants to describe their movement. These were

followed by broad questions that set out to understand the context in which each participant first

chose her movement style. Succeeding questions focused more directly on pertinent aspects of

movement experience, followed by specific questions about the movement and the body.
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The second section, dealing with the settings influencing performances and with the actual

performances, asked interviewees to describe the settings in which they perform and the physical

or social constraints differentiating one performance from another. Subsequent questions then

asked participants to describe specific details about their preparation, their performances and the

expectations they have with regard to performing. Later questions explored the relationship

between performance and the body. One of these would prompt participants to reflect on the

effect that cultural expectations about the female body might have on their work as performers.

The last questions oriented the interview to closure.

Two pilot interviews were conducted prior to the formalization of the final interview guide. The

practice experience at each pilot enabled the revision of a draft guide according to question

sequence and the specificity required in the phrasing of questions. After each pilot, the draft

interview guide was revised for expression, item appropriateness and clarity. Three revisions

were carried out overall. Two revisions were conducted after each pilot interview. The third

revision was made immediately prior to the first research interview and included edits to

expression and flow between questions, rather than the content.

5.4 Data collection procedure

Each interview would be arranged so that it could be conducted at a venue chosen by the

participant. A Consent Form (Appendix IV) was prepared for each interview in order to outline the

aim of the study and the handling of the recorded interview. The Consent Form also listed contact

details should participants have concerns about the research. Participants would be expected to

read and complete the Consent Form prior to the commencement of the interview. Tape-

recording did not begin until participants acknowledged their preparedness and comfort with this

procedure.

At the end of the interview, participants were provided with a copy of the Multidimensional Body-

Self Relations Questionnaire (MBSRQ) to complete at their own convenience. Stamped self-
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addressed envelopes were provided with the scale, to facilitate their prompt return to the

researcher.

5.5 Data analysis

The proposed procedures for data analysis pertained to both the quantitative and the qualitative

data to be collected.

5.5.1 Quantitative data description

Data from the MBSRQ would be analyzed using SPSS and it would be entered manually by the

researcher. The correct process for the analysis of the MBSRQ is outlined in the User’s Manual

(Cash, 1994a). This manual provides details for the scoring of each of the subscales and the

computing of values on each of the subscales when using SPSS.

5.5.2 Qualitative analysis

According to Patton (2002b), qualitative data analysis transforms data into findings. Choosing an

appropriate method in qualitative research, he suggested, should not be driven by laws about the

significance of procedures, but should be well matched to the purpose of the research. The

techniques that gave shape to findings in the present study were chosen from practices Patton

associated with pattern or thematic content analysis. They included inductive practices such as

(a) coding, (b) memoing and (c) data displays. These inductive practices are appropriate in

identifying what Patton (p. 453) referred to as “core consistencies” in the data. He also suggested

that those consistencies can be identified via a process of (d) “analytic induction” (p. 454), which

can be undertaken alongside inductive practices, but brings to the data predetermined

“sensitizing concepts” (p. 456).

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5.5.2.1 Inductive coding

Coding and memoing are essential to the process of induction used in qualitative analyses.

Punch (1998) noted that there are two main types of codes, (a) descriptive codes and (b)

inferential codes. Descriptive codes have a denotative quality. They were used in the present

study when seeking to become familiar with the data in the early stages of analysis. Inferential

codes on the other hand, have a more interpretive quality. They would be used in summarizing

the descriptive codes, and would serve to reduce large portions of the data into smaller,

manageable and more abstract units of meaning.

It was anticipated that the technique of inductive coding would serve to summarize the interview

data into units of meaning most efficiently. Patton (2002b) suggested that inductive coding

identifies core consistencies within the data from an emic perspective. This suggests that the

units of meaning that emerge have the stamp of the research participants’ expressive resources

upon them. In other words, they are what he referred to as “indigenous concepts” (p. 454).

5.5.2.2 Analytic induction and the use of sensitizing concepts

According to Patton (2002b), analytic induction is a technique suitable for qualitative analysis that

begins with the researcher examining the data from the point of view of theoretical propositions.

He suggested also that analytic induction might take place alongside the more emergent

inductive analyses generally associated with the identification of patterns or themes in qualitative

data. In the present study, in accordance with the first aim and first research question, analytic

induction would serve to establish a priori themes, or what Patton (2002, p. 454) referred to as

“theory-derived sensitizing concepts”. Sensitizing concepts provide an external reference point in

the analysis of qualitative data by providing “directions along which to look” (Patton, p. 456, citing

Blumer, 1969) and provide a very immediate and salient device for the coding of data when it is

important to establish the pervasiveness of a priori concepts within a particular group. The

sensitizing concepts would be constructed from Schilder’s (1935/1978) core propositions

concerning movement presented in Section 3.4.2 in Chapter three. They included (a) The

unconscious, (b) The active process, (c) Finding the body, (d) Anticipatory plans, (e) Plasticity
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and (f) Reflective emotion. These sensitizing concepts were pertinent to the understanding of the

data from the point of view of Schilder’s (1935/1978) dynamic theory.

5.5.2.3 Memoing

Memoing is yet another procedure associated with the analysis of qualitative data. According to

Punch (1998, p. 207), memoing takes the task of analysis “from the empirical to the conceptual”.

It is identified as the note taking done by the data analyst that accompanies the coding process.

In the present study, memoing would be invaluable as a means to explore substantive,

metaphorical or theoretical ideas as they emerged. The advantage of memos, according to

Punch, is that they have a speculative quality and thereby can highlight patterns and themes in

the data during the early stages of analysis.

5.5.2.4 Data displays

Punch (1998) noted that data displays “organize, compress and assemble information” (p. 203).

They are used to transform the bulky and sequential arrangement of qualitative data into a

simultaneously organized, visual format. In the present study the data display will take the form of

a matrix, with rows assigned to themes and columns assigned to participants’ research names.

Miles and Huberman (1994) described the procedures for building data displays. It was

anticipated that this technique would provide the opportunity to reduce the extensiveness of the

textual data, so that the examination of convergence and divergence between participants’

contributions could be established quickly and easily.

5.5.2.5 Identifying patterns in the data

According to Patton (2002b), the identification of patterns or units of meaning in qualitative data,

is organized primarily by one’s research questions. He suggested that research questions guide

the analyses in such a way so as to prevent qualitative findings from becoming too abstract or
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removed from the aim of the research. Miles and Huberman (1994) described practical

considerations when identifying patterns in qualitative data. Their model presented the individual

tasks such as inductive coding, analytic induction and memoing as part of the process of data

reduction. Further, they characterized the application of these tasks as an iterative process,

referred to as the interactive model. Figure 4 reproduces Miles and Huberman’s interactive

model.

Data Data
collection display

Data
reduction
Conclusions:
drawing/verifying

Figure 4. Components of data analysis: Interactive model (Miles & Huberman, p. 12).

The combination of the separate tasks applied in qualitative analysis take on an iterative

character since they are applied in a concurrent, yet interwoven manner. Each stage of reduction

can generate the necessity for further iterations and refinement of the patterns emerging in the

data. Analysis is evaluated as being completed when the level of abstraction attained by the

analysis can be formalized for discussion. In other words, when the patterns have become

conspicuous.
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CHAPTER SIX

FINDINGS

This chapter presents a descriptive analysis of the MBSRQ findings and the thematic analyses of

the fifteen interviews. It begins with a report of the characteristics of the sample recruited, and

with comment on the overall responsiveness of participants in the study.

6.1 Characteristics of the sample

The proposed sample of fifteen female participants was recruited relatively quickly using the

procedures described in Chapter four. The sample comprised, as planned, 5 Middle-eastern

dancers, 5 contemporary dancers and 5 aerobics instructors. The age range for the group was

from 25 to 44 years. The contemporary dancers ranged in age from 31 to 44 years, the Middle-

eastern dancers were aged 25 to 42 years and the aerobics instructors ranged in age from 27 to

42 years. The contemporary dancers had the highest median age of 38 years followed by the

aerobics instructors at 34.5 years and the Middle-eastern dancers at 33.5 years. Participants

were initially assigned numbers, and later, assigned a research names or pseudonyms, to protect

their identity. Table 1 on page 152 provides details about each participant’s group affiliation and

professional training in movement.

Demographic details about the participants were obtained only for the purpose of recruiting. The

ethnicity of participants was thereby not recorded, although it is important to mention that none of

the Middle-eastern dancers interviewed self-identified as Middle-eastern from a cultural

perspective.
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Table 1. Profile of participants according to group and movement experience.

Research name Group Dance and movement experience

Therese Contemporary Modern dance* and contemporary dance

Stella Contemporary Folk dance*, classical ballet, Martha Graham technique,

jazz ballet and contemporary dance

Thyra Contemporary Classical ballet* and contemporary dance

Ursula Contemporary Classical ballet* and contemporary dance

Fran Contemporary Classical ballet*, Asian traditions in dance, modern and

contemporary dance

Faith Middle-eastern Belly dance, Egyptian Middle-eastern dance

Alexander technique #

Eileen Middle-eastern Folk dance*, belly dance and Egyptian Middle-eastern

dance, Alexander technique #

Nonie Middle-eastern Classical ballet*, belly dance, Middle-eastern dance

Tina Middle-eastern Classical ballet*, folk dance and Middle-eastern dance

Fiona Middle-eastern Classical ballet*, jazz*, Egyptian Middle-eastern dance,

Alexander technique #

Viv Aerobics Aerobics

Sara Aerobics Classical ballet* and aerobics

Eloise Aerobics Aerobics

Sandra Aerobics Aerobics

Stephanie Aerobics Athletics* , classical ballet* and aerobics

* Childhood training
# Current training

6.2 Response of participants to the researcher’s requests

When arranging interviews, the interviewer-researcher sought to negotiate a time and location

that was convenient to the participant. Three participants arranged for their interview to be

conducted in an office space at their workplace, seven interviews were conducted in the homes

of the participants and five were conducted in an office space on university grounds (not the

researcher’s personal office space). Three participants agreed to be involved in the study on the

pre-condition that they obtain a cassette copy of the interview recording. This was provided at a

point in time after the interview was completed.

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In general, participants were curious about the topic area covered by the study. Some

participants demonstrated a capacity to articulate very specific and sophisticated ideas pertaining

to their movement experience while others struggled, at times, to relate questions to their own

experience, and would describe how they understood the experience of other people instead.

This strategy appeared to assist the participants who used it, to the extent that it enabled them to

clarify ideas they may have found too difficult to express if phrased from personal point of view.

At no time was it considered that participants’ responses might be fabrications. Each participant

showed a genuine and enthusiastic interest in the process of the interview. All interviews were

important to the exploration, although it will be observed that participants who demonstrated

more sophisticated or thorough knowledge were encouraged to elaborate at length and

consequently have been cited more often than others in this chapter.

At the end of the interview, each participant was given a copy of the questionnaire with an

accompanying self-addressed envelope. Two participants were reminded to return their

completed questionnaire via a telephone call. All questionnaires were returned. All data was

collected between August 1998 and June 1999.

6.3 Description of the questionnaire results

As proposed in Chapter four, the results of the MBSRQ were collated in order to enhance the

descriptive details of the group in relation to body image factors. Each participant completed a

copy of the scale. Means and standard deviations for each subscale are shown in Table 2 on

page 154 below. It is important to note that the Body-Areas Satisfaction subscale has been

calculated for only fourteen participants, since one participant refused to complete these items
1
and made a note on the questionnaire that she thought this section was “irrelevant” .

1
“To be completely honest, all this is totally irrelevant to me, not important. The function and
health of my body (to feel good and energetic) is so important. I cannot change my arms or legs,
head or hair if I don’t like them. There is only one of me. It all works well. I am so lucky and
appreciate and praise me for what I’ve got and how well it works and keeps me strong and
healthy” (Eileen).
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Table 2. Means and standard deviations on the MBSRQ subscales contrasted with the normative
data.

Subscale items Sample statistics MBSRQ Norms

(N = 15) for women #
M SD M SD
Appearance evaluation 3.09 .49 3.36 .87
Appearance orientation 3.13 .45 3.91 .60
Fitness evaluation 3.44 .48 3.48 .97
Fitness orientation 2.87 .24 3.20 .85
Health evaluation 3.61 .84 3.86 .80
Health orientation 3.49 .22 3.75 .70
Illness orientation 2.90 .49 3.21 .84
Body areas satisfaction* 3.61 .63 3.23 .74
Overweight preoccupation 2.58 1.01 3.03 .96
Self-classified weight 3.07 .44 3.57 .73
*Sample of fourteen
# Normative data supplied in User’s Manual (Cash, 1994).

The MBSRQ provides a snapshot of participants’ attitudinal disposition with regard to a structural-

functional construct for body image. This sample scored lower on nine subscales than was

anticipated by the norms. In particular, the mean score for ‘Appearance Orientation’ was one

standard deviation below the mean presented in the normative data. The mean for the ‘Body-

Areas Satisfaction’ was higher than that given by the normative data and the mean for ‘Self-

Classified Weight’ was lower and thereby classified by participants in this sample as being closer

to ‘normal’ than the normative data reflected. The mean for ‘Overweight Preoccupation’ was also

lower. Of note, seven participants scored below the first standard deviation set by the norms, on

the ‘Overweight Preoccupation’ subscale, four of these participants were Middle-eastern dancers.

This suggests that these women are less preoccupied with their weight than the normative data

suggested. Two aerobics instructors scored above the first standard deviation on this same

subscale.

The distinction between the sample scores and the norms may be a function of cultural

differences between this Australian sample and the population statistics gathered in the United

States. Alternatively, these scores may reflect real differences between this sample and the

normative population. For example, the standard deviations of the sample indicated that the

variability within this group was smaller than that of the normative population. Conversely, this
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sample can also be interpreted as being relatively homogenous with the normative population to

the extent that participants did not differ amongst one another any more than the norms

suggested. The analysis of the MBSRQ presented here does not verify that this sample is clearly

different from the normative population, but if we consider what differences there are, it is

noteworthy that the participants in this sample recorded less reactivity and investment in the

appearance of their bodies and that many also indicated less concern about being overweight.

6.4 Process of thematic analysis

The qualitative findings were discerned from the analysis of the fifteen tape-recorded interviews

as planned and described in Section 5.5.2 in Chapter five. All tape-recorded interviews (including

the two pilot interviews) were initially given a number and transcribed in full by the researcher. At

the completion of the transcription process, each transcript was read through while listening to its

recording in order to pick up errors. Corrections were made by hand.

6.4.1 Descriptive coding

The analysis of the data began with descriptive coding. The initial coding of the transcript was

guided by means of a device, in the form of a question, which focussed the analysis at this early

stage. This device-question was: “what is your movement?” Asking this question of the content of

the transcript enabled the researcher to identify excerpts where participants described their

movement and conveyed their knowledge pertaining to it. The fifteen transcripts were

systematically read in this fashion and all excerpts identified by this device were highlighted.
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6.4.2 Memoing

Memos were made to every transcript in order to emphasize and comment on the ideas

expressed by the participants when describing their experience of movement. The following

example illustrates the memos made during this stage.

Example:

Ursula: Memo:

You would religiously go to any class you could get ‘Lymphatic

your hands on, to understand and know you body system’ is an
more. So you would explore the origin of movement idea used for
coming from the lymphatic system in the body. exploring new
movement.

Viv: Memo:

I feel it’s a balance. I feel that you can’t just work Balance as a
your legs and forget your upper body and you can’t feeling of bodily
just work your upper body and forget your legs… competence.
You’re forgetting something, you know, there’s not
that balance in it. It’s got to be a balance.

6.4.3 Inferential coding

The early coding and memoing provided conceptual material through which to further summarize

the data in terms of themes. A priori themes were composed from Schilder’s (1935/1978) core

propositions concerning movement presented in Section 3.4.2 in Chapter three (Analytic

induction). A second and third round of summarizing the data generated also what have been

called the a posteriori themes. The a posteriori themes were developed from indigenous

concepts, that is, phrases and ideas used by the participants themselves (Inductive coding).

Therefore the a posteriori themes were coming into formation during the early stages of coding

and before the analytic induction was begun, but were not finally discerned until completion of the

analytic induction.
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6.4.3.1 Analytic induction and the formation of the a priori themes

Six a priori themes were extracted from the data using Schilder’s (1935/1978) core propositions

concerning movement. These core propositions served as sensitizing concepts. As noted in

Chapter five, the use of sensitizing concepts enable the researcher to establish the

pervasiveness of specific theoretical ideas within a particular group. The first proposition (a) ‘the

unconscious’ would identify any assumption by participants that implied that “there is in our body

image more than we consciously know about our body” (Schilder, 1935/1978, p. 13). The second

proposition (b) ‘the active process’ would identify any assumption by participants that conscious

and unconscious cognitive activity underlies the way their body image is assembled. The third

proposition referred to here as (c) ‘finding the body’ would confirm the proposition that all

movement requires the subject first finding a point within their body from which to begin. The

fourth proposition (d) ‘anticipatory plans’ would be identified as preemptively organized

movement sequences. The fifth proposition (e) ‘plasticity’ would identify the idea described by

Schilder that we have the capacity for “an almost unlimited number of body-images” (p. 67) and

that change is often indicated by a new psychic attitude. Finally (f) ‘reflective emotion’ would refer

to the narcissistic experience each person has with regard to his or her own body and is that

through which the plasticity of the body image is identified.

6.4.3.2 Inductive coding and the formation of a posteriori themes

The early rounds of data summarizing initiated the formation of the a posteriori themes from

indigenous concepts used by the participants. The codes used during this stage of analysis were

identified according to their salience, frequency, uniqueness or heuristic value. Eight codes

emerged from this stage. (a) ‘Technique’ which referred to basic descriptions by participants on

their movement as an identifiable procedural activity, technical practise or style, e.g. Flamenco.

(b) ‘Frames and created contexts’ referred to responses that indicated how performance settings

were established. (c) ‘Integration/wholeness’ was the label given to a range of experiences

described by participants that had connotations about wholeness, integration or a sense of unity.

(d) ‘Social context, beauty and aesthetics’ referred to descriptions by the participants on the
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extent to which social expectations about the female body influence the way they think about

their movement and performance. (e) The ‘transcendent effect of performance’ referred to

experiences described by participants that identify transformational effects from performing. (f)

‘The need or impulse to move’ is self-explanatory to the extent that it brings together descriptions

made by participants that identified an unassailable need to move or dance. (g) ‘Models on the

body’ referred to unique concepts used by participants when clarifying their conceptualization of

what happens during their movement. Lastly (h) ‘Thinking through the movement’ was linked to

the previous theme to the extent that models on the body facilitate the task of thinking through

movement. Thinking through the movement, thereby is an activity of attention that is given a very

specific focus.

6.4.3.3 Overall listing of themes

The final list of themes used in the qualitative analysis is presented in Table 3 below. The

sequencing of themes does not represent any hierarchical arrangement, but reflects simply the

order in which they were initially written down.

Table 3. A priori and a posteriori themes derived from data reduction

A Priori Themes A Posteriori Themes

a) The unconscious a) Technique

b) The active process b) Framing the performance setting
c) Anticipatory plan c) The organizing point
d) Finding the body d) Impact of the social ideal
e) Plasticity e) Transcendence
f) Reflective emotion f) An impulse to move
g) Abstract models for the body
h) The movement-thought relationship

Most of the a posteriori themes had their titles simplified. The most significant modification made

was the replacement of ‘integration/wholeness’ with ‘the organizing point’. This change was made

when it was observed during the inductive coding that participants were describing a very global
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experience that extended beyond either wholeness or integration. The term used by Grosz

(1994) has thus been borrowed, rather than applied as a sensitizing concept, since it was

considered that it captured more succinctly the experiences of personal integration and feelings

of achievement that appeared to anchor some participants. Schilder did not provide his

readership with anything other than ‘gestalt’ to encapsulate the organization of personal

constructions across time. While gestalt and organizing point are not applied synonymously here,

they have a comparable character in the context of continual dynamic construction. The

‘organizing point’ thus served to identify gestalt constructions in the process of continual

construction.

6.4.4 Data reduction

In order to become more familiar with the structure and distribution of these themes across the

sample, the data was reduced via a data display or data matrix in the style described by Miles

and Huberman (1994). This data matrix can be found in Appendix V and is presented in three

parts. Part A presents the matrix constructed for the contemporary dancers, Part B presents the

matrix constructed for the Middle-eastern dancers and Part C presents the data matrix

constructed for the Aerobics instructors. The matrix provided a visual display of the themes

across the sample and made it possible to further summarize the themes into broader groupings

referred to as metacodes. It is not intended to demonstrate the comprehensive detail in the

qualitative data, but to present a guide on to the range of ideas expressed by the participant

group. The greatest detail and most pithy examples from the data can be found in the narrative

descriptions that follow throughout this chapter. The data matrix did, however, support the

development of the metacodes. The three metacodes arrived at were titled 1) Constructive

activity, 2) The body reservoir and 3) Social constraints and effects. Table 4 lists the final

composition of the fourteen themes within each of the metacodes.

Seven themes were placed under the heading ‘Constructive activity’. These were grouped

together because, when interpreted in the context of dynamic construction, they suggested one

or other of the “two principal human tendencies” attributed by Schilder (1935/1978, p. 211) to
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dynamic construction. The title ‘Constructive activity’ is used instead of dynamic construction to

acknowledge the specificity of Schilder’s (1935/1978) theoretical terminology. ‘The body

reservoir’ differs from the previous metacode to the extent that the themes under that heading did

not necessarily imply a process of change or activity across time, but suggested inalienable

experiences pertaining to the potentiality of the body image or its function as a psychological

resource. The three themes under the heading ‘Social constraints and effects’ acknowledge the

way the performers organized an understanding of their place in performances.

Table 4. Fourteen themes organized according to the three metacodes.

Constructive activity

1. The active process A priori

2. Anticipatory plans A priori
3. Finding the body A priori
4. Technique A posteriori
5. Organizing point A posteriori
6. Abstract concepts for the body A posteriori
7. Movement-thought relationship A posteriori

The body reservoir

8. An unconscious A priori
9. Plasticity A priori
10. Reflective emotion A priori
11. The impulse to move A posteriori

Social constraints and effects

12. Framing the setting A posteriori

13. Impact of the social ideal A posteriori
14. Transcendence A posteriori

A second matrix was constructed in order to streamline the identification of the presence or

absence of each theme within each of the metacodes. This further summarization created the

second matrix, which is located in Appendix VI. This matrix demonstrates with a tick, the

presence or absence of each theme for every participant.

Sections 6.5, 6.6 and 6.7 below describe the findings relating to each of the metacodes,

respectively. Excerpts from the sample of transcripts are presented to illustrate the themes.
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Pseudonyms have been used for all participants and any specific details that might identify

participants have been omitted. Excerpts that include the interviewer’s questions or probing are

indented but not italicized.

6.5 Qualitative themes: Constructive activity

The themes brought together in this section refer largely to ideas that suggest the activity of the

two tendencies Schilder (1935/1978) associated with dynamic construction. The activity of

dynamic construction was described by Schilder as an exchange between continuous flow and

the building of secure points of rest for the perpetuation of the continuous flow. It represents an

alternating activity between construction and destruction. This was described previously in

Section 2.2.2.1 of Chapter two and illustrated in Figure 3. The themes brought together under

‘Constructive activity’ magnify the details of dynamic construction.

6.5.1 The active process

The active process is the first a priori theme associated with constructive activity, and was

described by Schilder (1935/1978) as a largely unconscious activity that produces a shift in

perception distinguished by a more concrete experience of what previously may have been

vague material. The aim of the active process is to bring new information “into the reach of the

active mind” (Schilder, p. 55), it is a trial and error process in which a more concrete knowledge

of the body image is the outcome of the process. It initiates the opportunity to build the image and

increase our knowledge of it. The concept of the active process was applied loosely in the

analysis of the data presented here. Theoretically speaking it is a creative and continuous

process. The perpetual nature of this process could not be captured within the narratives of the

participants, but could be inferred. For example, the experience of changes described by
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participants in relation to their physical and emotional disposition could be understood as a

2
crystallized insight in the midst of an underlying process .

The idea that improvisation, for instance, activates change in the perception of one’s own

disposition thus assumes also that a process has taken place in the background of experience.

The data demonstrate that an experience of change proceeds from the acquisition and practise

of procedural knowledge and this implies that some process is taking place. This process

contributes to the new point of view, disposition or emotion identified by my participants and

noted as short phrases in Appendix V. Schilder’s description of the active process thus provided

a means by which to conceptualize the nature of participants’ experience of change.

The description by participants of experiences suggesting that they came to understand their

body through an active process appeared in ten of the fifteen interviews. All contemporary dance

performers and Middle-eastern dancers used the notion of an active process to understand their

movement. However, no aerobics instructors made reference to a process in this way.

Improvisation was identified as an important aspect of the active process by nine of these

participants. Improvisation is a creative strategy that has been described by Stanton-Jones

(1992) as being like the concept of free association used by psychoanalysis, which enables the

observation of one’s least conscious responses.

One participant, Thyra, identified improvisation as a strategy that permits her to observe her

movement in new ways. New parts of reality are opened up to her through improvisation, which

she understands through the notion of research…

I pinch from Deborah Hay, who is a significant mentor at this point in time, and she talks
about choreography as research. So anytime you perform you are researching. […]
You ask the same question five or ten different ways. I can go into a performance and
ask the same performance question and get the same number of answers. It’s much
more fun than attempting to create narratives for people (Thyra).

2
Here Winnicott’s (1967b/1971) description of the relationship between contiguity and continuity
is adopted.
 163

Movement improvisation requires the suspension of conscious thought. It demands that Thyra

allow herself to respond to a sentience she attributes to her body in movement and to something

she can research within herself. The process Thyra observed is the process of becoming more

acquainted with that sentience; knowing it more fully. For this participant, movement was a way

of gaining greater concrete awareness of what would otherwise be vague experience.

Ursula’s understanding of the active process on the other hand was characterized in the context

of historical changes she had observed. Movement in her view was a process or a way of

understanding a more global experience of herself…

For me it’s a way of processing my life. It’s a way of understanding and processing for
me, and at the moment it’s the process of aging. There’s really not much written on the
way I experience aging. I look forward to exploring that, and it’s a force in the body.
There’s fear and a lot of excitement and a lot of unknown quantities about continuing to
dance in an aging body… where it feels like there’s another force at play other than
gravity or tiredness…that I really don’t understand and I’m looking forward to
understanding it (Ursula)

The active process in both these instances suggests that the vague or unknown are brought into

greater focus through movement. The difference between Thyra and Ursula’s descriptions is the

context in which they had observed that process. Thyra observed it during performances and

Ursula observed it as a cumulative process across the lifespan. Fran identified it in the

immediacy of her movement…

…[my movement] allows me to explore my perception and how I understand myself

perceiving the world. The practice itself you’re creating…the content is arising out of
each moment [...it’s like you’re] observing the arrival of [a response], and then as the
moment arises you treat it, you have a choice on how you speak that [in movement]
(Fran).

Fran described movement as a means through which to observe and respond to her perception

and engage with a process that she associated with acquiring greater knowledge about the body

image. The process she described did not simply magnify what Schilder (1935/1978) referred to

as the postural model, but includes the opportunity of engaging with less familiar parts of the

personality too.
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Middle-eastern dancers described their movement as an opportunity to develop a greater

awareness of their body and “stuff” (for an explanation of ‘stuff’ see Section 6.5.1 below). Middle-

eastern dance was associated with improvisation by four participants. The active process of

which these performers were most aware was the cultivation of ease of movement. Ease of

movement is an idea that conveys both a biomechanical and emotional way of moving. It is a

metaphorical idea used by the Middle-eastern dancers to convey a psychophysical experience

they have in response to their movement, but engaging with the process was not

straightforward…

[…] it actually takes a lot of time and patience and a lot of letting go and [some students]
haven’t got the patience to go deep into the process (Eileen)

Is this a ‘waiting thing’ when you say patience or do you mean patience with their
practise?

Waiting for your body to really become…waiting to release (Eileen).

Middle-eastern dance has very specific technical movements called isolations, which Eileen

suggested could not be properly mastered without “letting go” or “releasing” the physical body.

Letting go and releasing were used metaphorically by her to refer to an experience during her

movement that brings the psychological and the musculature together. It entails the release of

what she referred to as muscular holding patterns in the body that restrict the easy flow of

movement, and the letting go of the ideas associated with that physical restriction. This process

was identified by Eileen as being very important in the proficient execution of Middle-eastern

dance.

Tina differed from the other four Middle-eastern participants with regard to the active process and

articulated an idea more like that of the contemporary dancers. Her understanding of the process

was conceptualized as ‘adventure’…

In my opinion…it’s not like classical ballet where you need a ‘shape’ in order to work,
because it’s such a strict form…I think belly dance is much more interpretive and
responsive and very personal […]. And so you need a body to literally embody it, and
you need a sense of adventure, which is about letting go and allowing oneself to explore
and do things you’ve never done before. Use parts of the body that you might never
have known existed [Tina).
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The active process and the discovery of the dance are thus synonymous. That which is

discovered by the adventure is insight into how one immerses oneself into the dance.

In comparing the contemporary dancers and Middle-eastern dancers, there were differences in

how the process was understood. A number of the contemporary dancers used academic ideas

in order to articulate the nature of a process they felt was initiated by their study and performance

of movement. That process was intimately related to the practice of improvisation, but differed

from it in that it was also identified as a personal process of knowledge building and self-

understanding. By comparison, Middle-eastern performers, on the other hand, engaged with a

process by reflecting on their technical proficiency. However, this observation instigated a

psychophysical process in which muscular tension represented an obstacle to self-knowledge.

“Letting go” speaks metaphorically to the muscular tension just as it does to the psychological

experience.

Aerobics instructors did not identify an active process that could be subjectively observed through

their movement, even though a number of them had experienced changes. For example, Viv

noted that her motor co-ordination improved over time, Eloise emphasized a change in her social

confidence. The aerobics instructors were able to identify the emergence of change through a

different point of view they acquired in doing their movement. This point of view is clarified

through the concept of the organizing point described in Section 6.5.5 below.

6.5.2 Anticipatory plans

The idea described by Schilder (1935/1978) as the anticipatory plan was used as the second a

priori theme associated with constructive activity. Schilder described anticipatory plans in his

remarks on human action, and noted that at a deep level of the body image all human action has

a ‘plan’. Whether as a result of it having been acted out previously and embedded in our memory,

or whether it is yet to be performed, all movement requires a plan. The anticipatory plan is

structured by and through the image of the body, according to Schilder. It contains information

regarding both the dynamics of movement, which may involve the strenuous pointing of the toe
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and leg, and the aim of that movement, which may refer to a point directly in front of the place

from which the foot started.

Plans for action were described by every participant, although the sophistication with which those

plans were understood varied a great deal. Contemporary dancers had very theoretical ways of

understanding their plans for action. For example, Therese described anticipatory plans like a

web of procedural acts that have been established and embedded within the structure of her

body over the many years of training. This web she referred to as ‘a physical world’…

…for me the whole reason for working with other people is finding out something about
their physical world […] People have, I guess in its most basic form, each person
(because of all sorts of things) has their own way of moving. And that can be developed
into the extremely idiosyncratic, it can be developed into learning how to do something
in a more uniform way, but generally people, because of the way…well each person is
built differently, then they actually have a very different physical world. They have a
different way of doing things, and part of good [dance] training is that you understand
what that physical world is of your own.

So the average person isn’t aware of it?

Oh yes and no…it’s manifest in the most basic way of walking. Standing on a street
corner and watch people walking…and the way they organize themselves to do their
most simple of tasks and the most complicated […] watch people swimming, watch
people kicking footballs and they each have very different solutions to the same task
(Therese).

Anticipatory plans imply the movement studied, practised and exchanged in learning and

teaching a movement discipline. Anticipatory plans help us organize our simplest tasks. Plans

provide solutions to enacting movements of all kinds, whether kicking a football or exercising to

music. They come together over time and can be experienced by us consciously, especially

when we have an injury or pain, and sometimes through the ‘physical world’ of other people. This

last point introduces the plasticity of the body image, which is described in section 6.6.2 below.

Middle-eastern dance is practised through the repetition of movements referred to as ‘isolations’.

All Middle-eastern dancers study very similar sets of isolations, although geographical differences
 167

in the origin of each style of belly dance will be recognized by the emphasis each dancer may

give to the quality in those isolations. In Middle-eastern dance anticipatory plans thus differ

according an aesthetic they are thought to convey. Tina described the anticipatory plans of

Middle-eastern dance as a ‘key’ that opened up a new world of experience…

When I wanted to do creative dance, I didn’t really say to myself ‘Okay I really want to
do emotional and creative and interpretive dance’, but when I realized there was this
music that overwhelmed me and wanted to move, my body didn’t have the vocabulary to
do that, and it was very frustrating. It was swelling up and wanting to flow through my
body through my arms or whatever, but it was stopped, like blocked, and I’d feel very
frustrated, even in the privacy of my own lounge room […] And I used to get very upset
that I couldn’t do it. I do know I just couldn’t do it. It could swell up and then stop and I
wanted to break through and experience that beauty (Tina).

Tina described here how the study of Middle-eastern dance, with its specific plans for action,

permitted her to experience emotion she attributed to Arabic music. As a group, the Middle-

eastern dancers were far more likely to use abstract models of the body to understand their

anticipatory plans (see Section 6.5.6 below). They certainly identified specific isolations like

figure-eights, hip shakes and shimmies but preferred to describe their movement through

concepts like spirals or working through centre.

To further explore the anticipatory plans, each participant was asked the simple question of ‘Can

you describe your movement?’ This was responded to with different degrees of detail. The

aerobics instructors were very varied in their ability to answer it. For example, Sandra said “it’s

exercises to music”. Eloise was initially surprised when asked to describe her movement at the

start of the interview, and responded first with “I didn’t realize that I’d have to think” (Eloise). Viv

described her movement in terms of its effect on the heart rate “it’s moves you keep doing

consistently to music, so you don’t have any break, but it’s like going for a brisk walk”. Of the

aerobics instructors, Stephanie had the most elaborate ideas about her movement, and was able

to describe them through her understanding of an abstract concept she referred to as ‘body

comfort’…

I have two things over lapping. There’s the picture of the form and there’s the feeling in
the body. I’m a very even based instructor […] an even number on the right and the left
leg, and also using forward and back and sideways and using angles, but using them in
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an equal way […] And the same if you work toward the front of the room you find some
comfortable way to turn them to the back of the room and once again doing that
gradually. So in my mind I have that layout of the picture, but over-laid on that you’ve
got the feeling of your body movement and where your arms and legs are flowing
(Stephanie).

Anticipatory plans of the aerobics instructors were spoken of as being structured according to the

style preferred by the instructor, the space available, the expertise of the group and the music.

The above-mentioned participant demonstrated a fairly complex understanding of her anticipatory

plans by using body comfort (i.e. proprioceptive comfort) as her reference point. In aerobics,

exercise routines are invented by the instructor and then relayed in segments to the class in a

pattern which allows the instructor to remember them easily and in such a way that enables the

class also to remember them easily. Routines have a pictorial quality and the focus of the

instructors during their routines is aimed at ensuring that their movement presents an accurate

demonstration of the exercise. They must also aim for clearly spoken, motivating instructions to

their client group. The above-mentioned participant’s attention to proprioception offers a more

acute picture of the body image than that expressed by other aerobics instructors. This distinction

can be understood in the context of this participant’s previous training in an allied health

profession that relies on a thorough knowledge of human biomechanics.

According to Schilder (1935/1978), plans for action may bear no relationship to conscious

thought. But anticipatory plans can be made available to consciousness and articulated better

when procedural movement is studied in some way. In this sample it was shown that anticipatory

plans are integrated by each participant in a unique way. Contemporary dancers and Middle-

eastern dancers in this group each found visually descriptive metaphors through which to

describe their movement. By contrast, the aerobics instructors appeared to have difficulty

answering this question beyond the functional ideas through which they were trained. They were

undoubtedly very aware of changes they experienced in the global experience of their body

through concepts pertaining to competence, like motor co-ordination and physical confidence, but

did not have personal ways of understanding that experience. Anticipatory plans may be the very

material through which we learn to do movement but they do not need to be grasped in great
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depth in order to acquire proficiency in every style of movement. Rather, they may remain

organized as segments of movement to be passed on to subsequent students.

6.5.3 Finding the body

Finding the body is the third a priori theme associated with constructive activity that was

discerned from the data. The task of finding the body is part of the active process according to

Schilder (1935/1978) and it infers that there is a voluntary cognitive task involved in procedural

movement, albeit an unconscious one. In the current investigation, a number of participants

described the execution of their movement as needing to be preceded by the task of finding a

point from which to begin. This theme, nevertheless, invites questions as to whether my

participants’ construction of the point from which they initiated their movement has a direct

relationship to the psycho-physiological task described by Schilder. Thus it is argued that the

thematic excerpts presented under this heading certainly indicate that part of the task of finding

the body is illustrated here, although less conscious subpersonal processes involved in that task

could not be explored using the current methodology.

Finding the body emerged as a theme in eleven of the fifteen interviews. All contemporary

dancers and Middle-eastern dancers used this idea. One aerobics instructor, Stephanie, was

able to refer to the role that movement plays in improving body awareness. However, the

aerobics instructors were largely silent on the topic of finding the body.

Of the participants who did describe experience like that of ‘finding the body’, there were

differences in the concepts used. These differences were structured according to the discursive

ideas upon which participants drew from when explaining that experience. ‘Finding the body’ was

a highly refined experience for the contemporary dancers. Therese identified it as greater acuity

in her attention to her movement…

Can you describe the ways that your body is enabled, that other bodies aren’t?
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I’ve trained for a long time so I’ve got more acuity […] I’m more sensitive to… [I’ve] a
slightly more calibrated, more finely calibrated attention (Therese)

Therese referred here to ‘attention’, a finely calibrated and finely tuned attention to the body. This

mental work to ‘find’ or locate one’s attention more finely or acutely, characterizes the quality that

she identified her movement should convey. Finding the body was described in terms as an

acute awareness by Thyra…

I started dancing when I was four and […] I’d have to say, to do it well, to do it with that
level of awareness […] it does require virtuosity […]. The virtuosity lies in the area of
consciousness in the style of movement. Like you become more and more and more
awake to your experience […]. So I am aware of the subtlest changes, muscular holding
patterns, emotional impulses, images that arise. It may all become material for my
moving…

Thyra also pointed out that the greater awareness she acquires through her movement was

facilitated by good training which, in the best circumstances, should shed light on the unknown

and undiscovered. This reflects back on the active process and upon the unconscious as

described in Section 6.6.1 below…

…someone has to shine a torch for you down a certain path before you’ll walk
it…(Thyra).

Both Ursula and Thyra described an increased awareness as the centrepiece of their ability to

find the body. Fran reiterated this:

I know more about movement because my attention has increased to be able to follow
that movement, moment by moment, cell by cell. My ability to scan the body and know
what’s going on in a sense from head to toe, is more consistent as the training and
practice go on. So my ability to conceive a movement is more focused (Fran).

The more refined the attention the more developed is one’s ability to understand the possibilities

of the body. All the contemporary dancers noted that their self-awareness (i.e. capacity to find the

body) had developed through doing bodywork. The term bodywork refers to practice techniques

like Alexander technique, Feldenkrais, Pilates, Tai Chi or Yoga, that are often practised for cross

training. Ursula identified bodywork as a means through which “to understand and know your

body more” (Ursula). Bodywork appeared to supply the dancers with a new or different

conceptual framework, as well as different movement.

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Stella did not describe ‘finding the body’ as a quality of her movement, but drew on that idea as a

central ethic for life…

…Not being in touch with the body is like a form of spiritual castration. [The body] is the
vehicle… the spirit needs the vehicle of the body, and I think our journey through life is
to be fully incarnated, you know really. And that, I think, is true spirituality (Stella).

The way that different dance forms ask the dancer to find the body represents that which gives

shape to the knowledge that is acquired. Middle-eastern dancers did not qualify finding the body

very differently from ideas suggesting the active process. For example, Fiona described the way

her dance facilitated an exploration and an expectation to find in the same context…

I think the exploration is to find that essence of who I am. Not to find out how far I can
push myself, but just to say okay, ’who am I?’ in the most deep and holistic way (Fiona).

Noni described finding the body as akin to a puzzle that is resolved through her dance…

Well your life experience comes out in the dance, so the older you get you just seem to
express better […]. The more I learn the more that I’m filling out part of a puzzle [about]
the part dance plays in people’s lives […] a dance connection to spirituality […] I’m
gradually starting to become aware more of body knowledge and enjoying moving in my
body (Noni).

In Middle-eastern dance, the ‘find’ characterizes an increasing awareness of new parts of reality

that facilitate and are facilitated by the dance. Faith called this “coming back to the body”…

Although I’m a Middle-eastern dancer I’ve actually changed my relationship to Middle-

eastern dance. I’m not looking at it as a [dance] form that I’m going to impose upon
myself, but I’m actually going backwards and coming back to my body and drawing on
that technique, but letting it come out from me. It’s a hard process to describe […] I’m
actually using [the] movements to explore myself and my own form of expression and
[body] anatomy (Faith).

Faith’s approach to finding the body required her to adopt a new relationship to her technique

where the movement enabled her to explore her body.

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6.5.4 Technique

Technique was the first a posteriori theme deemed to be associated with constructive activity. It

captures the participants’ basic descriptions of their movement as a visually recognizable style. It

refers to basic descriptions given by participants about their movement that would distinguish it

as a unique and identifiable procedural activity, technical practice or style.

The contemporary dancers and Middle-eastern performers used stylistic ideas to describe their

movement, but were not confined by them. For example, on more than one occasion, when

asked to describe their movement, contemporary dancers qualified how they needed to interpret

the question before they could answer it. Contemporary performers may all refer to their

technique within the label “contemporary dance” or identify the main stylistic influences such as

“Martha Graham technique”, but each participant qualified her interpretation of her movement

within a personal and developmental history and cultural and stylistic contexts. One

contemporary dancer even suggested that her movement could not be classified outside the

contexts in which it is performed. Thyra’s description below exemplified the way the

contemporary dancers presented their movement as a construction built up from many

influences...

It’s not ballet, in that it’s very much about softness, releasing of tension, use of gravity
as a tool. A lot of it is low to the ground. A lot of it works off centre, so you’re using
weight and gravity as a motivation…It’s post-modern in origin, although it’s probably
modern in origin. People like Doris Humphries used the release of weight as a technical
structure. And from that perhaps, or in combination with that, things like contact work
evolved, which is one of the things I’ve studied. Contact improvisation, which is very
much based around weight and shared weight, use of the floor…by definition it’s done
with another person but a lot of the techniques you can take into solo movement. Some
of the principles are transferable. Other things I’ve studied are Idio-kinesis: ideas of
posture and postural alignment through the use of imagery and improvisation. A deep
releasing technique for the holding patterns, and you could refer that back to Reichian
notions of armoring in the body. Patterns of movement that one can address through
numerous avenues and I suppose my style comes, it is post-modern in that it comes
from a time and a place that began to acknowledge a “body-story”. The notion that
everyone has a history in the musculature and the cellular structure of the body. And so
when you move you’re telling something about yourself or your telling something about
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what it is to be human. As opposed to ballet which tries to tell something about what it’s
like to be mythological and not human. …Certainly the vertical plane is important, the
rising and the falling, the ability to rise out of the floor and the ability to sink into the floor,
the use of the support of the floor.

As a whole, contemporary dancers tended to similarly identify their dance as an emergent ability.

The Middle-eastern dancers were more likely to describe their movement in terms of very specific

technical styles that derive from very local regional communities in the Middle East and along the

Silk Road to the east. These styles are not named here, in order to protect the anonymity of the

participants. Some performers also noted that they had studied Flamenco to embellish their

dance. The Middle-eastern dancers as a whole characterized their dance as a place they had

arrived at.

Aerobics instructors described their technique in terms of the way it looked and with respect to

the energy level it needed to convey. Viv referred to “wide, big strong moves”. Eloise and Sandra

referred to it as exercise to music, while Sara and Stephanie gave the picture of that exercise

greater character. Sara referred to it in terms of the kind of effort she experiences…

…fairly intense… I like to be precise. I like to be strong. It has to be motivating...[there

needs to be] challenges in moves of strength…and in agility. There are challenges in
endurance and repetition

Stephanie described her movement in terms of a proprioceptive aesthetic:

I describe my style as more athletic than dancy… I think visually I like strong square
lines… I prefer less complex moves than complicated moves… I think my movements
indicate a certain neatness or let’s say an efficiency of movement…

Aerobics instructors identified their movement through the notion of a technical practice.

This theme demonstrated that there were differences in the way participants came to

conceptualize their movement. The broader context from which such differences emerged is

associated with the purpose each individual attributed to her movement. For example, the

contemporary dancers tended to characterize their movement as an artistic medium, the Middle-
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eastern dancers described theirs as an expressive medium for femininity, and the aerobics

instructors were unambiguous about the role of their movement as an exercise regime

demonstrated to others. These differences suggest that the understanding each individual

developed about her technique was crystallized not only by the extent of her training, but also by

the contexts in which her movement was executed or performed.

6.5.5 The organizing point

The organizing point is the second a posteriori theme associated with constructive activity. It

emerged from a range of ideas and experiences described by participants that suggested in part

a feeling of integrity, unity or wholeness in relation to the body image. However, as the

descriptions below indicate this theme also describes the participants’ experiences of a

perspectival point of view, not simply a spatially organized point, but an anchoring experience

from which their intentionality is directed. This organizing point was associated most directly with

the felt reality of their movement and was often contrasted with an alternative outside

perspective.

Therese, a contemporary dancer, was quite explicit about the shape of her organizing point…

How does the way you articulate space differ from ballet, because you keep making the
comparison?

It sounds incredibly dumb, and it’s not entirely true ‘cos it’s greyer than this…but it’s the
difference between understanding where you are in some sort of location by some sort
of experiential thing, rather than ‘how do I look?’ And it’s not as different as that because
obviously I’m aware of that as well, but there’s something about…if you spend all your
time thinking about exactly where you are because you’re supposed to be, and you’re
making a parallel between what you think you’re supposed to be doing and what you are
doing, it gives you a certain way of thinking about where your body is. As opposed to
thinking about where I am in relation to some idea I’ve got or whatever. They’re
different. One’s not better than the other…there are different ways (Therese).

Therese described her movement in terms of maintaining her attention to the moment by moment

responses she has when executing it. There is an appearance to her movement, but the look of it
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does not define the way she organizes her execution of movement, as she suggested, is the

case in classical ballet. This means that there is something in the doing of her movement that

simultaneously creates what it is she understands about her craft. The organizing point is

constructed from a very subjective perspective that Therese identified from an inside point of

view, although she acknowledged that the outside perspective is never irrelevant.

Fran, another contemporary dance performer, also organized an understanding of her movement

through a comparison between an inside and outside point of view. The outside point of view was

constructed for her through her early classical ballet training, as the following excerpt illustrates…

So in my initial ballet training I had a mirror and I wore a leotard, so I had an image. The
image was a costume if you like. Then we’re shown shapes, so you imitate the shape
and the line of classical ballet. So I was given pictures in my head like a form if you like,
I was presented with a form, and I practised that form, so I guess I had that form of
those positions and that vocabulary. I guess I was given a vocabulary, a specific
vocabulary that’s common to all dancers…(Fran)

However, in another excerpt she contrasted the image or outside view that her classical training

constructed for her, with the movement she currently performs…

So the headspace in classical ballet, often in classical you dance to music, so my

perception is reduced somewhat. My thinking is reduced somewhat. The music
becomes dominant. My body becomes dominant. The form is so strong that the body is
in automatic pilot and you rely on that form rather than your thinking. The practice that I
do now through different stages of my modern dance training, the teaching and
emphasis, there’s a need to think about the body in a different way. Just to think about
the body is necessary so then you become responsive to your body really, as opposed
to an outside form. You’re responsive to an internal form, that’s a less defined form from
the outside, but you’re defining it as you go I guess (Fran).

This participant reiterated the distinction between inside and outside and added to it a clarification

on the role of thought in the execution of her “internal form”. What Fran referred to as an outside

view denotes her self-attention to her movement as an object in the visual field of another. This

outside point of view does not give her a complete image, but is a device that guided her

classical training and defines what becomes the technical facility of the ballerina. Classical ballet

is a physical technique, but it is controlled by a very specific visual aesthetic that dominates the
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shape of the organizing point it can provide the novice dancer. This is again emphasized in the

remarks by Ursula below, but before turning to those comments, there is one assumption

underlying the comments by Fran that needs further attention.

The assumption that this participant used in her description and comparison between the two

points of view she acquired from dance is that every dance style can be understood using the

metaphor of ‘vocabulary’. As vocabulary, every movement style has a range of expressive idioms

that are unique and are recognizable to that style. This participant had been influenced by the

vocabulary of classical ballet, a traditional Asian form of dance and by her improvisation. As an

internal form, her movement is generated or defined as you go. It is not a vocabulary in itself, but

is more like what Creole is to the Root languages.

Ursula repeated the role that classical training has in imposing vocabulary upon the body…

…I’ve been aware, because essentially in the work I’ve done [teaching movement]… to
change the way people balance their body is to change their body image. And it’s not
the physical shift that’s hard to make it’s the psychological shift that’s hard to make. A lot
of mal-alignment in ballet and injuries are caused from pulling up too high […] some kids
have just learnt to go up, so I need to teach them ‘to go down to go up’, which will give
them more spring, more flexibility, more range of movement. But ‘to go down to go up’
you have to feel your weight […] That’s difficult [to teach] (Ursula).

Ursula described here her effort to get her students to attend to their proprioception in a new way.

In spite of the fact she described her interpretation of the experience of others in this excerpt, she

underlined the potential of one’s organizing point to change the way movement is produced and

according to Ursula, to change the body image. The psychological shift needed to do this is the

most difficult part, because it is likely to go against everything the students may have already

constructed about their movement. But a successful shift impacts directly on the grace of the

movement because it amplifies a new inside point of view, and thereby, the perspective from

which the student guides her movement.

The Middle-eastern dancers were equally aware of the role that their movement had in

developing a unique point of view…

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My body has transformed in terms of posture, less pain, more relaxation. I’m more in my
body...

And just go back and describe what it is you’ve learned to do in Middle-eastern dance
that perhaps I can’t do?

Flexibility, strength, fluidity, in that you learn to move with more harmony […] and
coordination, confidence […] I can’t just make it physical ‘cos…the other things have
been self-acceptance, and it’s been a process of coming back to my body. So it’s kind of
been an awareness of the physicality, which in a way has unlocked…’cos I’ve
experienced that we carry in our physicality our experience of life, they’re not separate.
And I guess it’s made me more and more aware of that… It’s a different view…Like I
sort of feel as though in Western views on the body and all that sort of thing it’s like
‘tight, toned, terrific, no cellulite, no wobble’. [Whereas this dance is about] the inside
rather than the outside, so it’s not your “image”, it’s not what other people see, it’s your
vessel (Faith).

The point of view Faith derived from her movement was that of uncovering her awareness and

attention to the inside rather than on an outside picture. The notion she referred to as ‘coming

back to the body’ captures the experience of being able to attend to her own responses during

her movement. Dance offers Faith information about the biomechanical and proprioceptive

aspects of her body, which she also interprets with respect to her memory. Middle-eastern dance

provides her with a different view of her body image, an organizing point that is characterized by

a capacity rather than a self-objectifying, Western one. Faith’s point of view was repeated by

Eileen…

What [this dance] does have is what I described before, this centering thing. I would
have to say that that’s where I come from. Watching this dance and looking at it, this
dance comes from a woman carrying a pot on her head. That’s where it comes from.
That’s where it begins, that’s it is for me […and] in my everyday life it’s given me more
fluidity and just in my movement, in my body, in how I travel around and how I feel in
myself. It’s given me a lot of self-esteem ‘cos it’s made me more open… [And the power
of the dance to do that] is what you create from the inside, it’s a really small intense
thing, and you have to keep working on it, like yoga. It’s the same…you know “you like
yoga, you’re fantastic at it, you’ve done it for twenty years, you quit for two and you get
stiff again” […] You have to keep reminding yourself. You have to keep tapping into it,
but it becomes more and more a part of you, but you have to keep going back to it
(Eileen).
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Eileen’s organizing point was represented by the image of “a woman carrying a pot on her head”.

Her dance was described by her as a praxis that creates a perspective or point of view through

which to attain knowledge about the body. What she identified about this point of view was that it

is only a “small intense thing”, but it is the very essence of her movement which she suggested,

becomes the greater part of the dancer.

The organizing point culminated for Noni as “confidence and a feeling of my place in the world. It

gives me the feeling of being a real person”. Tina described the organizing point she had

acquired through her movement as physical gains that seem to have metaphysical implications

for her in her daily life.

I’ve developed physical strength but it’s also body habit, but as a general thing dance is
good for holding me up and moving around, and I find that it’s a gradual thing over time,
but you get better service in shops. People are more helpful. I can move freely and
easily through the world. [I have better] spatial co-ordination in crossing the street and
negotiating space […] and when moving through space, it’s almost like if I’m hurrying
through a crowd, the crowd parts like I’m carrying another space around. And on days
when that’s not happening is when I become aware most of when it does happen (Tina).

The organizing point thus refers to an anchoring experience that the Middle-eastern and

contemporary performers associated with their movement. It is generated from an inside point of

view that, among other things, requires the dancer to sense the full weight of her body. The

organizing point has two sides or perspectives. The outside has a social quality, while the inside

is characterized as an intellectual activity that generates the experience of the new, albeit

concrete experience. This ability is characteristic of a capacity to mindfully attend to the body in

action rather than simply an aesthetically organized idea. This theme highlights the role that the

body image plays in organizing the relationship between one’s corporeality and intentionality.

The knowledge that can be acquired through movement has “different ways”, according to

Therese. Different processes and points of reference emerge according to the uniqueness of the

individual and the movement they prefer. A new perspective or organizing point on the body can

come about through Middle-eastern dance, but as Eileen suggested this is not given. In what
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sounds very like Schilder’s (1935/1978) qualification on the body image, Eileen implied in a

similar way that there is constructive activity underlying what is personally attained through doing

her movement…

I do feel that [belly dance] is a way women get in touch with themselves, in touch with
their bodies. It’s, in a way, the most accessible dance, not to say it’s easy […] but the
results are so good. Either you’re getting into it because you’ve realized how good it is
for you and you have a teacher that’s really holistic and is going to teach you in a way
that is going to benefit you […] or you’re getting into it because you’re looking at it on the
outside and you see the sequins and you see these gorgeous moves and you learn it all
from an external, exterior point of view. So either one of those can make you feel
good… [but] people come to my class that are not going to stay ‘cos they just want the
outside […] and you try and tell them that it actually takes a lot of time and patience and
a lot of letting go and they haven’t got the patience to go deep into the process […]
they’re missing out on the guts of it. They’re missing out on the power. There’s no power
in that. The power is what you create from the inside it’s a really small intense thing
(Eileen).

There are thus conditions that govern the emergence of the organizing point through movement.

An emphasis upon the aesthetic expected of the movement, or an outward appearance of the

body in movement, does not facilitate that emergence.

The aerobics instructors’ experience of the organizing point was quite different from the other two

groups. This is possibly because the training undergone by potential instructors requires them to

understand in a comprehensive way, the relationship between the movement and its role in

enhancing fitness. For the industry in which they are most likely to obtain employment, the fitness

industry, aerobic exercise is a means to an end, which is greater fitness. The individual

instructors interviewed in this study described how they attempted to modify some of the more

self-objectifying ideas propagated by the fitness industry. The organizing point adopted by the

aerobics instructors in this study was therefore a representative of the personal interpretation

each participant felt they had developed from doing aerobics. This organizing point they

suggested emerged in spite of the marketing messages about the body and body image

propagated by their workplaces and with which they may not whole-heartedly agree…

[…] Normally I don’t care at all […] how I look [and…] I feel I’m taking that [emphasis]
away from it, because I really don’t like that to happen […] I want them in there for the
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health benefits and I try to bring that out and I know these days they’re right into fat and
they say “Oh I should cut down on eating fat” and all that stuff and I keep saying “It’s
really good to have fat on your body, stop being silly. It’s not that bad”. I think it’s more
important that you feel well and strong and enjoy life (Viv).

Viv used an idea akin to ‘wellbeing’ to describe the knowledge she acquired through doing her

movement. She did not like the self-objectified orientation that some of her clients display with

regard to their physical appearance. The organizing point Viv described instead was one which

she suggested contrasts with that point of view. This she added was in conflict with the marketing

messages used to get clients in the door. Viv understood her movement as having helped her

formulate her own ideas about her body and body image, but she did not have a discourse

through which to fully expand what those ideas were.

Sara’s organizing point also permitted her to look at what she does differently, but she was also

unable to find words to fully express this…

I’ve got a sister who doesn’t exercise. That girl, every time she goes out [she] changes
her outfit 50 times […] She’s got to stand in front of the mirror, turn, turn, turn, ‘what
does this look like?’ She needs to find some kind of inner balance and she could get that
from just moving.

What’s inner balance?

It’s trying to find some sort of degree of acceptance and not being so critical about
things. And I put it back on the movement side of things.

That inner balance that you’re offering for other people is sort of like a shift isn’t it. It’s
like ‘don’t just look in the mirror’, you’re asking them to do something else, what is it?

Because without it they’ll give up [laughs]

But where are you shifting them to?

I know what I mean, but I don’t really know...I suppose even though the [look of the]
body is a focus, it shouldn’t be the main focus, and shouldn’t determine whether they’re
going to have a good day […] that’s where I think I’m getting people to shift [and realize]
that what’s reflected back at them [in the mirror] isn’t a reflection of how they can
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perform and how they can be kind to someone or how they fulfil their days in different
ways (Sara).

Both Viv and Sara preferred to speak about others rather than about themselves in these

examples. It is feasible to assume that their descriptions of others represent what they

themselves feel, given the way the interview questions were directed. This style of description by

them was not challenged during the interview but in hindsight might be attributed to the quality of

the conceptual material these participants have available to them in order to think about what

they do themselves. Viv and Sara both suggested that greater self-acceptance can be expected

from doing aerobics when it is combined with the right perspective. That perspective, they

implied, did not arrive directly from doing aerobic activity, but appears to be related to their

personal interpretation of what the role of a ‘good’ instructor is, from their experience of their

movement and from the way they choose to think about their body in movement.

The descriptions by the aerobics instructors were all constructed alongside or contrary to social

expectations about beauty, slenderness or fitness, which were regularly reinforced to them by

their workplaces and their clientele. The social position in which the aerobics instructors find

themselves is felt by them to be problematic, since their livelihood is dependent on how their

workplace evaluates their own physical appearance. However, the organizing point these

instructors described provided a buffer against the pressure imposed by the marketing messages

pertaining to physical beauty or fitness in the industry, because it identified that something else

emerges from doing their movement that those messages fail to articulate. A concept like

‘wellbeing’ certainly provides a general point of view through which to think about what that

something else might be, but four of the aerobics instructors did not have a tangible discourse

that they could use to describe what they acquire through their movement. Stephanie differed

from the other four aerobics instructors in this regard. She did not portray very much about her

experience of her organizing point. However, it was clear from her description of the role that

abstract ideas play in guiding her movement, and that she experienced her body image from both

an inside and outside point of view.

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6.5.6 The role of abstract models

The role of abstract models is the third a posteriori theme found to be associated with

constructive activity. It refers to the way unique concepts were used by participants when

clarifying their conceptualization of what happens during their movement. It emerged that the

function of abstract models or concepts when studying movement shapes participants’ ability to

promote the conceptualization of what happens during that movement. Abstract models on the

body were used by all participants in this study, although the aerobics instructors had a very

different way of making use of them compared with the contemporary and Middle-eastern

dancers.

Contemporary dancers used a range of concepts through which to understand their movement.

Abstract models enable the performer to conceptualize what happens, when it happens. Ursula

cultivated a particular kind of knowledge about the body through her way of thinking about

balance…

Some movements are grounded. Ballet works against groundedness…and some people
are too grounded… Grounded isn’t good or bad. It’s about being in balance. It depends
where you are. It can be good, if you tend to be losing a sense of reality…you want to
come down to stabilize…but if someone’s depressed or too grounded or inert, you
would want to get them up off the ground (Ursula).

Ursula used the idea of balance to conceptualize a relationship between psychological affect and

aspects of physical posture. This is achieved by using the concept of ‘balance’ metaphorically.

The relationship between affect and posture she described here provides an integrated

perspective on the psychophysical by bringing body and mind into the same phenomenological

order. This model enabled Ursula to understand her own experience and contextualize it within

very broad and (human) species specific parameters about the nature of mind.

Stella suggested that being in touch with the body represented a basic spiritual condition of being

human. Maintaining that spiritual condition was central to the way she understood her movement.

Thyra described a similar idea when suggesting that her dance enabled her to bring her

experience of body and mind into a closer relationship…

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[In ballet training] you learn to hold the spine very erect and use it more or less as one
piece […] In modern dance and post-modern [it’s] about being able to experience every
millimetre in succession, so there’s no place for rigidity, you need to have fluidity in your
body [and…] I suppose in a general way it tells me about the depth of myself the inner
depth of my experiencing, and it tells me that all my experience is grounded in my body,
so I’m not a body that I train for a certain goal. My ‘self’ is an integrated body-mind
experience…[and] I am physically adept, graceful, strong, flexible, reflexive, responsive,
alive, present, expressive […and] probably in terms of ordinary social experience I feel a
lot more expressive than other people (Thyra).

Thyra used an abstract concept to formulate the relationship between the body and experience

that described how that relationship occurs. Her model is premised by the proposition that mind

and body can be brought closer together. She then facilitates closeness through greater attention

to every millimetre in succession during movement. This activity of thought provides a point of

view that is felt by her to be more authentic, more awake and potentially the best place from

which to dance…

What is it that you know that makes your body more ‘awake’ than mine?

Well intention is always central…my intention over many years is to awaken the
experience of my body…[so] there are places I’ve been to that you haven’t because no-
one’s probably given you permission or set that intention for you…it’s like someone has
to shine a torch for you down a certain path before you’ll walk it…(Thyra).

The body for Thyra is like an unknown resource until we are given an opportunity to experience

every millimetre. This ideas pre-empts what has been brought together under the second

metacode referred to as ‘The body reservoir’. However, here it clarifies the ideas that guide

awareness of that reservoir. All the contemporary dancers used abstract models of some kind to

think about the relationship between body and mind.

Not all Middle-eastern dancers had a clear understanding of the abstract models they used to

understand their movement, but they created abstract concepts about their body from their

movement experience. For example, Noni understood her dance in the context of its rhythm and

how that compares with nature and art. Through such metaphors she was able to apprehend

what her kinaesthetic experience revealed to her about her body image…
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The thing that moves me most about the dance is actually the flow through the whole
body. The change in flow and the shapes you get. I like drawing arabesques along the
ground and in the air, and there are also fast percussive movements, when the music
indicates, that are a shaking of the hips […] and they wobble and flutter […] like grain
shaking on stems […] It’s like painting…

It’s physical enjoyment the way a kid enjoys being swung on a swing […] It’s like you’re
being swung on a swing or you’re in your mother’s arms rocked. You’re actually getting
that rocking sensation (Noni)

Kinaesthetic experience provides the sensory experience through which Noni understands what

she does. She did not use the term kinesthetic perception, but was able to focus upon it through

metaphoric ideas that provided resemblance.

Tina was very much more interested in the visual metaphors to conceptualize her movement.

These metaphors had a relationship to the languid quality in Arabic rhythms that she translated

into visual concepts…

I like to use the Uzbecki proverb that says, ‘the willow bends and the oak explodes’ […]
the Arabic thing is the willow, it just flows out […] And when I’m preparing for a
performance […] I always say ‘body like toffee on a hot day’ or ‘arms falling like rose
petals through water’. And those images are soft and long […] when I’m teaching I say
‘imagine that your arms are resting on incense that is coming up from the floor’ and so
the arms are resting on that smoke and they float on that smoke, so it’s a response to
something else (Tina)

This participant’s visual imagery changed her ideas about her movement. Her images translate

the kinesthetic quality of the dance into thoughts that can assist practice. Three Middle-eastern

dancers characterized their movement through terminology derived from their study of the

Alexander technique. The Alexander technique is bodywork system that aims to improve insight

into the relationship between body parts, and into the relation of the whole body to gravity and its

physical alignment. On the basis of this discourse, Eileen gave centrality to the importance of

“spinal alignment”, which gave her a physical and conceptual focus for improving her movement

proficiency. Faith put greater emphasis on “feeling grounded”. This was demonstrated by the

attention she gave to her centre of gravity, which she located from the waist down to the hips.
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Fiona understood her movement as work with “weight”, “gravity” and “momentum” toward

“minimum effort”.

All aerobic instructors used the cardiovascular system as the primary abstract concept through

which to understand their movement. Stephanie was the only aerobics instructor who made use

of other abstract ideas such as “body comfort”, “symmetry” and “an efficiency of movement”…

I think my movements indicate a certain neatness or efficiency of movement […] As far

as body comfort is concerned you don’t want to be going from one movement that
suddenly changes direction, or suddenly use a new plane, unless you gradually move
into it through a more simple move […] I try to emphasize [neatness] in aerobics [...]
There’s also the feel of going in one direction and then flowing back and having a
smooth transition in the middle so you feel like you’re evening out (Stephanie)

Stephanie’s use of abstract ideas like body comfort refers directly to proprioception and the study

of human biomechanics. Her knowledge of these ideas had been established in a prior

profession in which knowledge about human biomechanics played a central part. Her abstract

concepts thereby indicate that she has a very specific way of thinking about the anticipatory plans

giving structure to her routines. The other aerobics instructors were able to describe how they

conducted their routines, the qualities that gave their routines a professional edge while being

enjoyable for their clients, but they did not have abstract concepts like comfort to think through

their routines.

6.5.7 The movement-thought relationship

The movement-thought relationship is the fourth and last a posteriori theme identified as

associated with constructive activity. It is facilitated by the use of abstract models to the extent

that they facilitate the task of thinking through movement. Thinking through the movement is an

activity of attention and suggests also a found, learned or acknowledged relationship described

by the participants on the way ‘mind’ and ‘body’ coexist. The movement-thought relationship is

similar to the way abstract concepts support the task of finding the body, but differs from them in

that they are higher order concepts that indicate broad assumptions about the phenomenological
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relationship between the body and mind. Therese’s assumption about the relationship between

mind and body was that thought can have a direct physical effect…

Give me an idea of how you would prepare physically or psychologically before you
perform?

…part of it is the thinking about it and I don’t understand enough about this in terms of
the neuropsychology by any means, but I know [that] thinking through things
physically…[can] have a direct physical effect. If you are disciplined enough to use that
or aspects of it…it definitely assists, and you can see that with people who are good
physically…that being in touch with that (Therese).

Therese described the function that thinking through can have on her performance preparation.

She organized this idea on the assumption that the relationship between thought and movement

can be heightened by movement training.

Thyra used the idea of a body consciousness to describe this heightened relationship, which she

also referred to as “a presence of mind [as much] as it is a presence of body”. Ursula described

the relationship between movement and thought as part of an activity that constructed a unique

listening ability…

You would go to any class you could get your hands on […]. So you would explore the
origin of a movement coming from the lymphatic system or the circulatory system, or
from an organ or a gland or a musculature. You developed a great sense of listening to
the body, and the ability to understand just your anatomy and the qualities that different
aspects of the body give to the movement (Ursula).

There is the finding of the body in this example, but that finding is structured according to an

assumption that movement and kinesthetic perception create a new sensory organ. Ursula

described movement here in conjunction with a listening ability. Her abstract ideas certainly make

this metaphorical leap possible, but the actual listening is made possible only through the

execution of her movement. Movement makes a new kind listening manifest.

Three Middle-eastern performers described an explicit relationship between thought and

movement in their dance. The Alexander technique provided the theoretical framework for three

Middle-eastern performers in the sample to understand this. It is significant that no aerobics

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instructors had a conceptual model through which to think about the movement-thought

relationship. Faith gave a very elaborate description of the way ‘thinking through the movement’

changes the way she sees herself…

Generally when I think about my body through dance, it’s very positive and growthful,
and it’s learning and there’s more to go and there’s somewhere to go with it and it’s a
good sense of body image through thinking about movement. However, if I walk out and
I’m not thinking about dance or I’m not thinking through that way, but I’m thinking
through ‘out there’ and what’s expected of me, I have a very poor self image…and I
actually still have a lot of problems to do with how I see my body and how I relate to
food and my body (Faith).

For Faith, the movement-thought relationship provided her with a method of maintaining the

organizing point from which she improvised and engaged with the world. Her movement, in this

example, is characterized as a context. Her moving body is the context and is used to redefine

the central criteria she requires to build that organizing point. The relationship that exists between

movement and thought is domain specific. It is specific to the moving body. The social criteria

often used to understand the body, and most specifically, the gendered body in Western culture,

impinge upon her capacity to maintain that organizing point.

6.5.8 Summary concerning constructive activity themes

The themes brought together under the metacode of constructive activity are associated with

Schilder’s (1935/1978) characterization of dynamic construction.

6.5.8.1 The active process

The active process is not necessarily available to conscious perception but Schilder’s

(1935/1978) description of it suggests that it is an activity that continually organizes the body

image from a relatively vague sense into a more concrete experience. As remarked in Section

6.5.8.1, the active process is not necessarily available to conscious perception but is essential to

an understanding of the continual flux and constructive energies Schilder associated with the
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body image, since it characterizes what he identified as the dynamic activity. What the findings of

this study suggest is that the training in movement provides the opportunity for the person to

become more aware of that non-conscious activity. Figure 5 below is a diagrammatic summary of

the constructive activity themes presented in this section.

The execution of Conceptual material Acquired learning

movement

Organizing point
Anticipatory plans
Abstract concepts The movement-
Finding the body thought relationship

Technique

Active process
Vague Concrete
experience experience

Figure 5. Diagrammatic summary of constructive activity themes

The active process is represented here as a directed task. In the findings it was represented by

participants through concepts like “improvisation”, “a way of processing” or “a way of getting in

touch with stuff”. The direction of that process can be characterized as one’s perception of the

world, but the findings suggested that this process is also involved in self-perception and

apperception. The character of the process is thus typified by subtle shifts in the quality of the

knowledge accrued about one’s own body across time. Figure 5 represents this cumulative

experience as a cycle of learning that continually changes over time.

6.5.8.2 Anticipatory plans and finding the body

The acquisition of knowledge about one’s body image, according to Schilder (1935/1978), is

dependent upon the role of movement. Anticipatory plans are the non-conscious referents aiding

the generation of skilled movement. Anticipatory plans represent the material that becomes the

learning in the acquisition of movement that pertains to dynamic construction, and were
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considered as the imagined referents through which ones movement is executed. The acquisition

of knowledge about one’s body image, according to Schilder (1935/1978), is dependent upon the

role of movement. Finding the body is required in the execution of any movement, but this task is

made more conscious in the study of procedural movement. Finding the body is always part of

constructive activity, but the extent to which the body could be found by participants in this

sample differed between individuals according to the conceptual material each used to

understand what they do. There is a continual cycle of dynamic construction and when new

conceptual material is fed back into the execution of movement, the image is constructed anew.

6.5.8.3 The organizing point and the technique

This study has represented the learning that is acquired through the acquisition of new

anticipatory plans and the effort to find the body in the execution of those plans, through the

organizing point, the movement-thought relationship and the technique. The theme referred to as

the organizing point was derived from a range of experiences described by participants that

implied that their movement enabled them to construct a more thorough image of their body, as

though it came into greater focus or light through the execution of movement. The participants

identified this greater awareness as a feeling of bodily integrity or an anchoring experience from

which their intentionality could be directed further. This greater awareness is referred to as body

insight in the study of the kinesthetic perceptual system. However, from the point of view of

Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory the organizing point highlights the continual development of the

body image and the role of movement in that dynamic construction.

The acquired learning characterized by the movement-thought relationship referred to comments

wherein participants identified their body as a psychological domain, rather than a physical one,

and as such they identified it as a territory that could be explored through their movement. This

conceptualization was characterized by comments about a capacity to observe or be mindful of

that domain during the execution of movement, but each participant described this activity in very

personal ways.
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Participants’ descriptions of their technique demonstrated the kind of information that the

musculoskeletal system in particular proffers psychological experience. Participants differed in

the level of detail they identified about their technique according to the style they practised, but

there were also differences between individuals within each movement group. Individuals who

had trained in the same movement style but described their technique in unique and

individualized ways, had generally built up that understanding from highly specified conceptual

material, metaphors or abstract concepts.

6.5.8.4 Abstract concepts

The conceptual material, or abstract concepts, that participants used to execute their movement

had a significant impact on the understanding they derived from that movement. This

understanding was most clearly identified through the way participants described both the

execution and choreographing of their movement. For example, abstract concepts provided a

discursive or linguistic structure through which participants were able to develop a more attuned

focus to their movement. This was made available through abstract concepts because, as ideas,

they organized participants’ psychological relationship to their movement and helped to frame

how each understood its purpose. Abstract concepts benefit constructive activity and the active

process in general because they provide illumination to the task of finding the body. In other

words they operate like thinking activities.

6.6 Qualitative themes: The body reservoir

The body reservoir is a phrase that has been chosen to encompass a group of four themes that

suggested that there are properties pertaining to the body, and recognized by the participants,

that are not directly associated with constructive activity and the continuity of the body image.

The body reservoir was described by participants as having the character of a psychological

potentiality that is often felt to be alien to or disruptive of constructive activity. The themes below

thereby often present experiences that have been interpreted by the participants as emanating
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from the body itself, as though involuntarily. In spite of this, this potentiality has also been

described as an enriching experience.

6.6.1 The unconscious

Descriptions by participants suggesting that they imagined an unconscious level of experience or

somatic memory underlying their conscious awareness appeared in eight of the fifteen interviews.

This theme is the fourth a priori theme. All the contemporary performers used this idea and three

Middle-eastern dancers brought the idea up during their interview. The two Middle-eastern

dancers who did not refer to this idea did not describe any experience in bodywork as part of their

physical preparation. The three Middle-eastern dancers who did speak about an unconscious all

had participated in a bodywork method called Alexander technique. They referred to this extra

training as a way to refine the alignment of their body for their dance. None of the aerobics

instructors described ideas that referred to an unconscious.

The contemporary dancers Ursula, Thyra, Fran and Middle-eastern dancer Fiona referred to an

unconscious, but their unconscious had a kinaesthetic quality to it. These participants used the

concept of holding patterns and postural habits to understand less conscious aspects of their

movement experience. Ursula referred to the body as an unexplored entity where dance permits

her to “see what’s there”. Thyra also posited her dance as a way to explore the unconscious,

which she refers to as a body story…

I suppose my style comes… it is post-modern in that it comes from a time and place that
began to acknowledge a body story, the notion that everyone has a history in the
musculature and the cellular structure of the body. And so when you move you’re telling
something about yourself or you’re telling something about what it is to be human
(Thyra).

Therese used a more theoretically recognizable understanding of unconscious when she

described how performance makes the things she explores during improvisation, manifest…
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In the piece I’m making…there are different stages…some of it, the physical material is
derived from the things I see and also things I experience in the process of improvising
and also things I experience in terms of just being in the world (Therese).

Therese’s relationship to her dance suggests that she is able to gain access to a different kind of

experience via her improvisation. Improvisation permits this participant to become aware of

physical material that might not otherwise be conscious to her. She made reference to things she

experiences during improvisation that, according to the aims of that creative technique, are

anticipated to arrive from a less conscious aspect of one’s experience or memory.

The Middle-eastern dancers Faith, Eileen and the contemporary dancer Stella spoke more

amorphously about “things” and getting in touch with “stuff”…

Initially I was drawn to Middle-eastern dance out of personal growth […] But then
through being a performer and focusing on the artistic side of it I then somehow got
back to the therapeutic element that initially drew me, and that lead me to do Alexander
technique which is, as well as being a physical alignment, it unblocks things that are
stored in the body […] If you look at your whole life and the sort of experiences you’ve
had and how they’ve affected your body, what I feel I’ve learned through movement and
dance and the Alexander technique, is to work through that stuff (Faith).

“Stuff” and “things” become transformed through dance and performance either because the

active process “releases” them or because the performance does. The unconscious thus had the

quality of resource.

6.6.2 The plasticity of the body image

The description by participants of plasticity in the body image emerged amongst the

contemporary dance performers and the Middle-eastern dancers only. This is the fifth a priori

theme. Schilder (1935/1978) was very explicit about the role that movement plays in the

maintaining the plasticity of the body image. The plasticity of the body image is the central

characteristic of dynamic construction.

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Contemporary performers recognized and worked with the plasticity of the body image. Thyra

described being able to observe the plasticity of her body image via the process of aging…

Over the time I’ve been performing I’ve had many different bodies […]. One has to
acknowledge the aging process when you’re a dancer. Maybe other people get to ignore
it for a bit longer, but you’re just so aware of how your abilities change, and I don’t say
diminish, because they do change. The body is not a fixed entity. There is no fixed
image so there is not a ‘body’ that I present. I present a changing body and I do that
consciously and knowingly […] We’re not fixed, we change all the time, and I like to
embody and embrace that (Thyra).

Therese captured the character of this plasticity when describing how movement is passed

between performers of movement…

There are different stages [in making work]…some of it…the physical material is derived
from things I experience in the process of improvising and also that I experience in
terms of just being in the world. If I’m working with other dancers it’s part of my physical
world and my physical language, but I’m also interested in…For me the whole point of
working with other people is finding out something about their physical world too. […]
Rather than completely imposing myself on them, I’m much more interested in what they
have to offer as well, although I am interested in imposing things on them as well […]

If I teach a phrase of movement to other dancers, no matter how much they rehearse it,
they will never look like me. Although people have said how interesting it is to see traces
of my body on other people…so you can see those traces […] you do acquire physical
mannerisms and experiences from another body, and it’s generally shaped by your
physical world too. Traces become as they go to more generations; it’s like a Chinese
whisper, they alter (Therese).

For Fran, the plasticity of the body image was captured through the notion of being able to shift

perspective…

Someone said to me recently “You transcend the form”. So in her perspective I was
dancing a pretty straightforward modern style, but my performance to her suggested
that I was transcending the form, because I guess my perspective of what I’m doing is
layered […]. I think by layering I’m thinking of a synthesis of all [my training] […] and
[that] includes all the body memories and the mind stuff and how I’m slipping them all
into the same language. And just being able to shift between, I guess it’s not such a
slipping, but having the ability in the performance moment to shift between these
different modes of perceiving (Fran).
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Fran conceptualizes her movement as a synthesis, layering and melding of her training, but that

pliability is not disorienting, rather it is facilitated by her through a shift in the perspective. This

shift in perspective is not facilitated by the transformative effect afforded by costuming, as

Schilder (1935/1978) suggested, but is described by her as a shift in her “mode of perceiving”.

Fran is able to draw upon her diverse training and through the acute plasticity she has acquired

from that training, is able to slip everything into what she calls one language. Fran’s movement

enables her to reconstruct the image continually.

For Stella, plasticity was attributed to the structural aspects of the material body …

I think people start to die spiritually, mentally and physically when they get stuck, when
they don’t develop any more. So you always want to re-program, like re-programming
the body constantly. It keeps it alert. A re-tuning and fine-tuning and re-programming all
the time (Stella).

Stella achieves this re-programming by keeping up her training and challenging her capacity to

explore new and different kinds of movement in that training.

For the Middle-eastern dancers, plasticity was reveled as very much a part of their dance and as

being facilitated by the music. Middle-eastern dance brings the quality of the music into focus

through the isolations, spiraling and figure eight movements through the body. These movements

appeared to cultivate a feeling of plasticity that is a unique experience for each person. Eileen

described a sense of becoming snake-like. Noni described an experience of becoming light or

really big. Tina illustrated the plasticity of the body image through her use of metaphor to

understand what she is doing…

I often refer to the body as ‘singing the song’, so the body should sing […]. And if there
are lyrics that accompany that piece of music, I’m singing the poetry. My body is singing
the poetry […]

When I’m teaching and when I’m teaching myself and preparing for a performance […]
to do that I will always say […] ‘Your arms become a ribbon’, […] it’s not like the ribbon,
it is the ribbon. That’s how I feel I become that (Tina)
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The plasticity in the image of the body is mobilized through the metaphor of song and allows Tina

to embody the music. For Fiona, the plasticity was described as being an alchemical quality…

Because [this dance] is entirely about interpreting the music, and opening yourself to the
music and expressing that music, it’s like an alchemy of the music and your personality,
and then it comes out […] What you see, what you really see with a good […] dancer is
you see that person. You have the sense as you’re watching that you’re really seeing
that person, that performer, their personality (Fiona).

This alchemy occurs not simply as a response to the music, but by imagining the body as the

vehicle through which the music is given meaning. Alchemy and the idea of plasticity

acknowledge the conversion of the body into something else.

6.6.3 Reflective emotion

The idea of reflective emotion in their movement was explored specifically with regard to the

participants’ performances, rather than simply in their everyday life. Reflective emotion appeared

consistently across the sample although the quality of that emotion differed from one individual to

the next. These differences demonstrate that reflective emotion is closely linked both to the life

experience of the individual, and the way their performances are framed. For example, the

performances in which the Middle-eastern dancers and the contemporary dancers take part were

considered expressive acts or artistic. The aerobics instructors recognized that their performance

is different from an artistic performance, but still use tropes in order to maintain their social role.

The way these tropes construct and maintain the performance setting is described in Section

6.6.2 below.

Emotion is akin to social dialogue according to Schilder (1935/1978), which implies that it is

constituted through the response to a perceived or imagined ‘other’. Reflective emotion in

response to one’s bodily appearance is also constituted via the perceived ‘other’. Participants

varied in the way they expressed their reflective emotion in response to their bodily appearance.

For some participants, reflective emotion was given only a passing comment, while others

emphasized acute experiences of discomfort and distress. Thyra commented on the changes she
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had noticed in the appearance of her body, but did not attribute any greater significance to it than

what she would want to express in her performance...

One has to acknowledge the aging process when you’re a dancer […] the body is not a
fixed entity […] My body as it is, is not toned, it’s not as attractive as it used to be. I don’t
have beach muscles any more, but in a way the older I get the deeper…the deep
muscles that hold you and align you, they’re the ones with the depth of personality […]
It’s less about what I look like and more about what I am (Thyra).

Stella expressed a stronger response…

To what extent do you think that the expectations of women’s bodily ideal impact on
performances?

Oh God! [Face in hands] it complicates the whole process it makes it even more nerve
wracking because apart from feeling that you’re there communicating and trying to say
something to the best of your ability, there’s always this thought in the background that
I’m also being judged for the way I look…

Has that changed over time, or has that always been there. I suppose I’m asking if age
has anything to do with it?

It’s become worse for me […] It’s always there, and I’m feeling it even more now
(Stella).

Stella’s strong emotions revealed that she responds to a rigid and scrutinizing other, and that that

imagined other creates great distress for her. However, the experience of public scrutiny inspired

a different response for one Middle-eastern dancer…

To what extent do you think that the body you bring shapes audience’s responses to
what you do?

Probably my height […] I play a bit on the height thing, instead of trying to hide it […] so
part of the persona I’m developing […] is much more the Grand Opera kind of thing […] I
don’t what to be a cute, sweet, happy bouncy, little thing. It’s much more mature and
aloof [as in…] ‘Isn’t it your lucky day you can see me dance’. It’s that sort of thing…

Is that part of the transportation?

It is part of the transportation, rather than ‘I’ve got this bloody job’. It’s not an imposition
on me, it’s like I’m doing a favor […] and that is part of what my height offers so I might
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as well use it. I can create a perception also with my particular body, I’ve always had
quite big hips comparatively, and I used to be quite self-conscious of that, but now I’m
not because I can just use my hips…and the same with the chest. Because I’ve got
such a small bust comparatively, in some ways the chest shimmy is a really cheeky
thing to do. Because ‘I haven’t got much, but look what I have got’. And it’s coming out
from here, from just below the clavicle notch, it’s not saying ‘Look at me I’ve got big tits’,
it’s this pride and heightened projection that comes up (Tina).

Tina described here how she is able to use what public scrutiny there may be during her

performances to support an important aspect of her performance, namely her persona. Through

that persona she is able to receive appreciation for the favor she imagines her dance provides

those audiences.

All performers need to presuppose an appreciative audience, and with that expectation the

perception of the momentary currents of emotion can be fully apprehended so as to enhance the

performance...

It’s very hard to articulate the pleasure of performing. Obviously there’s something about
being looked at, but there’s also something about being given the opportunity to ‘show’

Are the calibrated aspects of your body part of the show?

Yes, and being able to switch between showing the types of things that you’re showing,
so you can get the audience to focus in different ways on your body and on the
movement. And working out how to do that…that to me is one of the pleasures of
performing (Therese).

The expectation of an appreciative audience is something that cannot occur without some

preparation and expertise.

Aerobics instructors took a different position in relation to their reflective emotion when compared

to the other two groups. The excerpt below illustrates this.

Have you noticed a change in how you think about your body over time?

I think less about my body. I noticed that I was much more caught up with the way I
looked before I got fitter and healthier. And it’s a very common thing…that the fitter you
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get, you seem to be less occupied with whether you look fatter. You’re more accepting
of your body.

Do you think that’s just because it looks better, or do you think that the activity has
something to do with it?

I still think it’s got something to do with the activity…I know there [are] a few side
handles that have gone, but I still think the overall well-being is more important and has
the greatest change. It’s that well-being, for some reason [that] makes me more
accepting of my body…and I even notice that when you go for a celebration [and] you
over eat, and [usually] the day after you feel bloated and fat. But I can feel quite okay
the next day and I don’t [give myself] any punishment and I know I’m still capable of
physical activity, but for some reason you don’t seem to have the punishments all the
time (Viv).

Viv described an acceptance for her body, and suggested that her reflective emotion has slipped

to a background place, as an effect of the increased activity offered by her movement. This

contrasts with a more resounding self-scrutiny she recalled and once understood to be quite

punishing. Viv’s reflective emotion was more salient when it was negative and cruel. Self-

acceptance, on the other hand was a more silent dialogue.

For Eloise, another aerobics instructor, positive, reflective emotion was heightened and sustained

by movement-performances…

Try to explain the kind of information that doing your movement might convey to you
about yourself?

This is a very personal thing, but it’s my own little stage. So I feel like this is my time to
blurt out whatever. Whether it be a personal thing, what I did over the weekend. So if I
didn’t have that, that hour up there, I would really suffer a lot, ‘cos I find it’s really me,
and no matter how upset I am, when I’m up there…and it’s not like a performance it’s
not like I’m acting, I’m really, really happy when I’m up there.

What is it that it has, that everyday interaction lacks?

This is probably sad, but ‘attention’.

Are you bigger when you’re up there?

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No, it’s just the same level but I just feel it’s nice, and I like being with women also. I just
like it […] Because you’ve got the music, and because you’ve got everyone else doing it,
which makes it inspirational, but the music is something that makes it enjoyable. Like a
little holiday […]

If you could describe something that you were making for other people in that hour, what
might it be?

Because I see it as their little hour, their little holiday, and I see it more in the ladies gym.
It’s almost a sisterly thing, but for them to feel like they did this class, not with any
instructor, but with a great instructor, on a personality level […] this is not answering
your question but when I think about all the things I’ve been doing lately, and whenever I
do take that bit of personality that I have there, I always create a happy environment,
and a happy scene for me.

What do you call that bit?

Confidence and bubbly sort of confidence, and when I don’t have that, that’s usually
when I’m down (Eloise).

Without the movement performance, Eloise described herself as deprived of an opportunity for

positive reflective emotion.

Reflective emotion is a completely different experience for each individual in this study, although

all participants appeared to be aware of this dimension in their experience of performances. It

was not intended that this study examine why such differences exist but, to acknowledge that the

strong emotion or love that Schilder (1935/1978) suggested was the basis of our relationship to

our body, could be identified in the sample.

6.6.4 The impulse or need to move

An impulse or need to move was described by six participants. An impulse to move refers to the

observation by some participants that they had been able to observe a psychological point in

their body from which they can reliably choose to initiate their movement, as though therein lies

an impulse waiting to move. The need to move is similar, although it identifies the place from
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which movement is initiated as being a more global and driven need, rather than a place from

which a choice is made. The experiences described by participants varied, but the message was

consistent. For example, Thyra described her need to dance as her “soul being fed”. Stella said

“I’ll drop dead the day I stop dancing” and Ursula contextualized the need to dance, in the

following…

…And I guess I would say that a lot of people that are attracted to that sort of dance had
a lot of feeling to do. Many dancers I think start with a lack, whereas someone who’s
never felt the need to dance and has had a healthy background upbringing in body,
might have other…

Can you expand what ‘a need to dance’ is, because quite a few women have mentioned
that?

Yeah it’s exactly that. You feel like you’d die. It’s a feeling that if you don’t dance you’ll
suffocate, drown, you are being closed-in. I have a question about that. I often think that
many dancers have some issue that they’re resolving that started in-utero. A very non-
verbal…there’s always an image of wanting to get out, feeling enclosed. It’s an internal
need. My life would be a lot easier if I didn’t have to dance, because dancing is
incredibly uneconomic. It takes a lot of time…if you want to continue to perform it takes
a lot of time to set aside a time to maintain a certain amount of fitness to be able to do it
[…] So it ‘becomes’ I think, if you keep on doing it, it’s an opportunity to know yourself in
a much deeper way, and it’s very nurturing. You feel alive. It’s addictive in a way
(Ursula).

Two Middle-eastern dancers referred to a need or impulse to dance. Noni described the

following…

I came from ballet […] I started when I was seven until I was about fourteen

And how long have you been dancing this form?

About eight years

So there was a gap, did you do anything else in between?

In between …I did a little bit of dance classes occasionally, but then I fell in love […] and
everything else dropped off […] and then I realized I needed it again, because I’d really
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needed it as a kid. I forced my mother to take me to dance classes […] I’ve just got a
drive to do it (Noni).

Tina another Middle-eastern dancer, recognized her impulse to dance through the positive effect

it brings to her ‘soul’…

Describe what the movement can convey to you about yourself. What not having a
chance to dance would leave out?

Oh how horrifying…instantly I think of being closed in […] Like the body gets agitated,
and that’s not because I did a lot of movement as a kid and was used to it..

[…] I wanted to get out and move and to feed my soul and just expand…and I actually
feel that things were closing down and I was collapsing inward, and I would feel it in my
body where my shoulders were and spiritually start to really sour, and I’d feel like I’d
want to spit out nasty stuff, because I was just sinking […] but when I get a chance to
move it feels like the reverse happens […] Some people might find it when they find God
or alcohol or computer games, but I just want to access that thing (Tina).

The impulse to move was experienced by all these women as an agitation that is settled or

calmed by their dance. This agitation was explained by Ursula as being like a signal that permits

her to think about her dance as a way of analyzing her life. The impulse to move corresponded in

structure with Schilder’s description of the unconscious. The need to move was certainly

unconscious, but its character resembled more that of a physical compulsion.

6.6.5 Summary concerning the body reservoir themes

The themes brought together within the metacode ‘body reservoir’ represent the body image as

an open potentiality that is both disruptive of constructive activity but can also enrich it. The body

reservoir has two characteristics. The first can be likened to resource, landscape or domain in

which unconscious memory is stored. Some participants described “stuff” and “things” that they

sought in the process of improvisation. One participant referred in particular her own “body story”,

and other participants referred to unconscious “blocks” that prevent the realization of their body

story or stuff. This resource or landscape also accounted for what a number of participants

referred to as a need or impulse to move. The need to move was described as a bodily affect that
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insists involuntarily, and was found by some participants as the primary motivation for them to

pursue the study of their procedural movement. On the other hand, the impulse to move, also a

bodily affect, was conceptualized as an unconscious experience that could be sought out

consciously in the process of improvisation.

The affective experience of the body reservoir has the potential for enjoyment and unpleasure.

For example, the experience of self-love that Schilder (1935/1978) attributed to the body image

can be either heightened or shaken by movement performances. Thus the social interface

created at every performance intensifies what was described in Sections 1.3.3 and 1.3.4 as being

essential opportunities for normal psychological development. The mirroring experienced in

movement performances thus also characterizes very fundamental aspects of each individual’s

body story. Pleasure and unpleasure thus echo what must be expected of the body image as a

psychological achievement, but also identify how the mirroring required for psychological

development is re-experienced in adulthood by every individual in a way unique to the body story.

The second characteristic of the body reservoir is a functional capacity rather than a domain or

resource. This functional capacity was characterized by Schilder (1935/1978) as the plasticity of

the body image. For example, one participant insisted that the body is not a fixed entity across

time. Others highlighted the open potentiality of their body in the context of other bodies

(synchronically). For example, they described how very personal mannerisms in movement are

transferred unintentionally to other bodies, and correspondingly that one can acquire the

mannerisms of others in the same fashion. The plasticity of the body image thus enables

psychological extension, or what Schilder referred to as body image interplay. The plasticity of

the body image was also instrumental in participants’ descriptions of transformation,

transportation and alchemy.

6.7 Qualitative themes: Social constraints and effects

The themes brought together under the metacode ‘social constraints and effects’ identified the

parameters within which participants chose to perform or in which they were expected to. All the
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themes in this metacode are a posteriori themes. Namely, they have been generated from

indigenous topics described by the participants in the course of interviewing.

6.7.1 Framing the setting

This theme emerged in response to questions that aimed to understand how performance

settings were constructed. This effort, it was assumed, is an important aspect of performing since

appreciative or receptive audiences do not occur without some preliminary organization. For

example, the contemporary dancers all described the extent to which they would construct

particular attributes of the performance setting ahead of time. This preparation included choosing

the venue according to features like its architecture, the shape of space, whether it was indoors

or outdoors, the proximity of the performance space to the audience, the quality of the music, the

opportunity for music versus no music, the use of lighting and the opportunity to temporally

organize the pace and presentation of their performance. Where possible, the contemporary

performers consciously constructed their settings alongside the construction of their dance.

The contexts in which Middle-eastern dancers perform have a different quality from those of the

contemporary dancers. Middle-eastern dancers may be asked to perform at restaurants, private

functions and a range of community events. They often also perform for one another (i.e. within

the ‘belly dance community’ itself). As performers they represent images of womanhood, fertility

and femininity more blatantly than the contemporary dancers or aerobics instructors do and as a

result, these different settings all require different kinds of frames. Tina and Faith both spoke

about the development of a dance persona as an effective way of framing the setting for

themselves. However, the nature of the audience is something that can bring about the

unexpected, especially when audience expectations are shaped by ideas that might confuse the

definition of the performance as the dancer intended it…

I believe that the role of the belly dancer is to assist people to enjoy themselves […]
[but] Western audiences are the most difficult to dance for ‘cos they don’t know how to
respond. If it’s an Arabic audience and they think you’re a crap dancer […] they won’t
give the endorsement […] [But] western audiences don’t know if they’re allowed to look,
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how to respond […] I’m not asking them to lust after my body, but I am asking them to
enjoy the dance and enjoy the experience (Tina).

Fiona regarded her costume as an important feature of her performance in that it helps to reduce

the confusion of audiences. She also limits her performances to venues of a particular type…

One thing that is different [about my dance] is the costuming…the legs are always
covered, and that’s because they’re working so hard you don’t want people to see them,
because it’s not attractive to see what the legs are doing, you want them to see the hips
but not the legs […]

I don’t want to compete with peoples kebabs […] I’ve had people respond
inappropriately by getting up and trying to imitate what I’m doing and trying to mock […]
It becomes really hard to ignore those people and focus on the ones who do like it.
That’s why I just want to be in a space where people are there because they want to see
you perform. […] There’s this whole overlapping, interweaving thing about oriental
fantasies about women, mysterious eastern women and harems. And I just find that a
drag. You’ve got all this baggage as a performer. I find it strange [then] that some
dancers want to wear the two-piece costume and then want people to take them
incredibly seriously and ignore the fact that they’re displaying their body (Fiona).

Framing the setting can be very hit and miss for the Middle-eastern dancers. It is very difficult to

frame each performance adequately because it often involves introducing outsiders to their art

form. Misconceptions about Middle-eastern dance and the women who dance it, often precede

performances…

Like what you see in a restaurant, like I find that really ridiculous often, and yet it’s not
what I do, but I do it. And for instance, I want to apply for a grant to Australia council […]
I’ve got this great resume, and they pop down to the local restaurant and they see a
‘belly dancer’. Are they going to give me funding when what they’re seeing [in the
restaurant], what I’m saying is art, is some kind of cheap act to bring money to the
restaurant? (Eileen),

This participant is very clear about how she defines what she does, but that definition is very

different from the way she perceives the society interprets the role of the ‘belly dancer’.

The aerobics instructors recognized that their performance is different from an artistic

performance, but they still identified the need for physical and social dexterity in order to maintain
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their role. The level of fitness of the class and the gender of the group will influence how a

session is conducted. Enjoyment for the clientele was considered the most important outcome of

a performance by this group of instructors, but framing that enjoyment required specific

strategies. Three of the instructors noted that the most important framework guiding their

performance was the construction of learning curves that would enable their clientele to pick up

the exercises quickly. Camaraderie with the group was deemed the next most important factor

that aerobics instructors felt they should offer their clientele, because it too facilitated enjoyment

in the exercise.

6.7.2 The impact of the social ideal

The impact of the social ideal was the sixth a posteriori theme to emerge. It encompasses

descriptions by the participants of the extent to which social expectations about the female body

influence the way they think about their movement and performance. All participants experienced

the pressure of some social aesthetic. Those who had received early classical ballet training

were likely to attribute that pressure to the standards propagated by their ballet schooling. Fran

described it in relationship to the way she has developed her dance.

To what extent does women’s bodily ideal impact on what you do?

A lot. I went through the whole classical thing where being slim…well not that it was
much of an issue for me because I’m naturally slim anyway. That was my foundation if
you like and being this physical frame has affected my whole style and how that’s
presented, because it’s part of the picture […] [In ballet training] the demands are on the
body. It’s so image based, and you’re striving to achieve the body type for ballet, and
then on a more local level there’s the competition rife through the whole system. So
you’re competing with your fellow students to achieve whatever happens to be
desirable.

Is that competition propagated or does it come about through participation?

I think it’s propagated by the teacher and by the culture. It comes down to ‘who’ gets to
dance in ‘what’. Who’s the best, because the form is so specific there’s a success rate
that is so much more judgmental (Fran).
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Ursula identified the standards used in training young dancers for ballet as arbitrary and

unhelpful…

I came up [through ballet training] when there was only ballet and ballet promotes a very
rigid style. ‘We’re interested in 5’6” blonde skinny girls’... There’s a look for the chorus
and they want them to be the same, they prefer the blonde and they like a particular
height ‘cos they like straight rows. It’s very brutal and it’s got nothing to do with how well
you dance. And many of us, and I include myself, grew up wanting to fit that mold. I was
too tall (Ursula).

Stella was more inclined to agree with the social ideal to the extent that some body shapes “do

not lend themselves to certain techniques”. She added…

For example, I think it’s a real tragedy that mothers send their daughters to ballet really
early, because a little girl can be really burning with desire to do ballet, but by the time
she hits puberty she’s already starting to develop these child bearing hips and follow the
genetic structure of her mum. And there’s no way that child, if she’s going to end up with
huge size 16 hips, can continue to do ballet. I mean the whole centre of gravity is
thrown, she’ll start to tighten up in the pelvis…so obviously shape and size do have
something to do with certain techniques, although it should not be an impediment to all
techniques (Stella).

Those with early ballet training were very much aware of the importance placed upon the

aesthetic in classical ballet. They were also aware of how it has an impact on the early training of

the student of dance.

The social ideal influencing the Middle-eastern dancers did not emerge through the training, but

was conspicuous in their individual efforts to get experience as performers...

To what extent do expectations of the body ideal for women impact on the audiences’
responses? Before you said no one likes a skinny dancer, is it a reversal?

Not always. For the majority of my calls out of the yellow pages for a belly dancer I have
to ask ‘what sort?’ They answer ‘not too old, not too young, beautiful, not too big, size
10’.

What about amongst the community of dancers themselves, is there an aesthetic that
develops there, where there’s pressure to look a certain way physically?
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Not necessarily. Amongst belly dancers it is a celebration of everyone. That thing comes
out which is a positive thing amongst the belly dancers. Everyone is okay (Eileen).

Faith suggested that the most significant influence of the social ideal is its capacity to remind her

of its expectations when she would prefer to ignore them…

I sort of feel as though in Western views on the body and all that sort of thing it’s like
‘tight’, ‘toned’, ’terrific’ ‘no wobble’…

So what’s that control over do you think?

Control over femininity I suppose, ultimately if you go underneath all the layers…

Or particular aspects, because women are allowed to have fat breasts…

It’s fertility, the hips, the bum, the stomach […] [when I think about womanhood and
femininity] […] when I think of it through dance and movement, there’s actually a lot of
positive feeling about how I feel about my body […] However if I walk out and I’m not
thinking about dance or I’m not thinking through that way, but thinking more through ‘out
there’ and what’s expected of me, I have a very poor self image (Faith).

Faith described here how, when not thinking through her movement, she begins to think about

her body from a self-objectified point of view. The image constructed through her dance has a

direct relationship to her understanding of her own womanhood and femininity, but the social

ideal can erode that experience and disrupt her body image through the pressure it applies on

her as a social subject. The organizing point Faith developed was not constructed easily. She

described how she struggles to maintain its integrity by thinking through her movement (i.e.

finding the body).

Aerobic instructors tended to describe the social ideal with greater ambivalence than the other

two groups. Part of the reason for this is that they are under pressure to present a good looking

role model, but the expectations of that look often demand slenderness and beauty before

fitness. Sandra described this as being a problem within the fitness industry and as a pressure for

her…
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The more over weight, less fit people can see me as something achievable whereas the
size 8 instructor, they look at her and think ‘I’ll never be like that’ […] Possibly the fitter
[clients] would look upon me as someone who doesn’t have what’s needed to…you
know…but it’s dependent on their fitness […]

I consider myself carrying too much weight to be the image of a ‘good’ aerobics
instructor. A health and fitness image. As far as I’m concerned I see the aerobics
instructor as the representation of a healthy person and a healthy lifestyle, and I’m
battling with my weight and always have, and see myself as not being a true
representation of a healthy, fit person. So I go to class and expect the instructor to
represent ‘health and fitness’ to me, not necessarily a size 8, but health and fitness
(Sandra).

Stephanie did not experience the same level of pressure on her own appearance, but recognized

how a social ideal regularly distorts what her clients expect a ‘good’ instructor to be.

Unfortunately in this day and age, I think there is a really strong response to attractive
males and females in the industry. They will get a following, but I feel my body is my
asset […] I like to think that it’s not just what I look like, or don’t look like, but there’s
going to be a certain degree of that. Hopefully when [my clients] get there it’s my
personality and how I relate, and the class I give them that encourages them to come
back […] I’d say though that attractive and popular personalities, even if they give a bad
class… […] “blow me down” their classes are packed (Stephanie).

It must be pointed out that the role of the aerobics instructor is to represent an autoscopic picture

to their clients so that new routines can be learned. The demand on the instructor is to be able to

demonstrate clearly and easily, but also according to their industry they are required to emulate a

socially valued picture of fitness to which their class groups can aspire.

I’ve obviously got to look strong and toned […] if I didn’t look the part, I probably
wouldn’t have [the clients] coming in (Viv).

Social expectations are an inescapable part of having a sexed body in society. These excerpts

suggest that social expectations are like autoscopic benchmarks, not unlike the way the ballet

student follows her mirror image, that help give shape to the body image but can also over

determine that shape.

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6.7.3 The transcendent effect of the movement-performance

The transcendent effect of the movement-performance refers to experiences described by

participants that identified either transformational experiences or a sense of transportation from

performing. All participants except one identified some transcendent experience. The quality of

the transcendent experience differed markedly between individuals and was somewhat

characterized according to their movement style. For example, Stella and Ursula described

transformation as akin to a conceptual shift in which they find themselves participating…

What characteristics might you expect in your most fully developed performance that
takes it beyond locomotion?

I think probably a sense of no longer being an individual, but a process (Stella).

Stella discovered herself within a process while Ursula discovered a clean canvas…

One reason why I continue to perform, and I don’t understand this phenomenon yet, but
I’m fascinated by it, is that when I perform…then when I go back to the studio, my
movement vocabulary has changed. There’s something in performing a piece. I will
rehearse it through improvisation [but] when I go back to the studio, when I’ve
performed it, it’s like I have a clean canvas and all the habitual things that I’ve being
trying to shift…the vocabulary, has completely changed […] [In performance] you are
very much aware of being ‘audienced’ which is very like being witnessed (Ursula).

This participant described her observation that, once a procedural movement piece is witnessed

by an audience, it is transformed and an experience akin to a blank canvas takes its place. This

implies that her acquired learning and practise is shifted by the performance from its place as

procedural memory into something else.

The transcendent experience of the Middle-eastern dancers can be more closely aligned with the

plasticity of the body image. This plasticity is heightened by the expectation that the movements

and the music come together aesthetically and rhythmically. For Tina the transformation was the

feeling of “becoming one with [the movement]”. Others described the following…

What characteristics might you expect in your most fully developed performance that
takes it beyond locomotion?
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When it’s no longer me moving myself, but when the feeling carries me away and I’m
not even thinking about my body (Faith).

And…

The energy is alive. It feels like you’re stretching out to the ends of the world (Noni).

And…

There’s electricity in the room when it’s really going well that everyone can feel (Fiona).

Aerobics instructors described the transcendent experience of their movement in a number of

ways. One experience all participants could relate to was referred to as the “buzz”. Not every

class contains the buzz. It cannot be planned for, it just happens unexpectedly when everything

fits together really well across the hour (i.e. the music, the movement, the teaching and the class

ability and their mood). Beyond this experience individuals described the aerobics sessions as

opportunities to transcend their ordinary existence…

I could be dying and would be able to get up and do it I think, because it just does
something…there’s a real…it’s just so hard to explain because it just happens. It just
happens, because it doesn’t matter how shitty I am, how pissed off, how sad I am…as
soon as that ‘play’ button goes down, the whole world changes (Sara).

And

It’s like my little escape. Like I find I don’t need a partner. I just feel like it’s my love, my
little passion. I don’t need a partner. If things aren’t going right I’ve got my little escape
[…] an hour for yourself to be selfish… (Eloise).

Other transcendent experiences referred to transformations they may have observed in their own

everyday life…

I do a lot more things, but I’ve got a lot of energy for those things too. I’m out on the
court playing, I’m not just observing, I’m out there involved in it. More fulfillment in life. A
lot more opportunities for things. It’s a state of mind too. It must alter the state of mind.
It recharges the batteries and it’s great for stress, [it] gives you a ‘take on the world
attitude’ after wards. It’s good for the spirit too (Sandra).

The transcendent effect of the movement-performance was described by all as uplifting.

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6.7.4 Summary of social constraints and effects themes

The themes brought together within the metacode ‘social constraints and effects’ represent

contextual influences that give shape to participants’ experience in performance. The parameters

within which they chose to perform were thus organized according to expectations that, they

perceived, governed their performances. For example, contemporary dancers and Middle-

eastern dancers could be differentiated from the aerobics instructors to the extent that the formal

teaching structure in aerobics classes organizes a particular kind of relationship between the

aerobics instructors and their audiences that is absent in the other kinds of performances.

However, contemporary dancers and Middle-eastern dancers have an opportunity to perform

within specialized contexts governed by conventions associated with tact and ritual in

performance. This distinction was reflected in the way contemporary dancers and Middle-eastern

dancers framed the settings in which they perform. For example, contemporary dancers,

especially, described themselves as being quite instrumental in staging the physical parameters

in which they performed. The aerobics instructors, on the other hand, described the expectations

of their industry as governing the role they may be expected to enact during movement

performances. Some participants thereby described great flexibility in the way they constructed

their performance settings, while others described inflexible settings that demanded they deal

with the unexpected in audience behavior.

Social values pertaining to the role of the female body in performance were described by some

participants as being a hindrance the enjoyment of performing but, sometimes, such values could

enhance their experience. What were identified as hindrances referred largely to transgressive

behavior by audience members with respect to conventions about the nature of the setting, the

persona presented by the performers and the social conventions associated with the tact

required and rituals expected by and of audiences around performances. Enhanced experiences

were associated with a sense of transportation or a feeling of transformation. Social constraints

and effects thereby have a direct relationship on one’s experience of the body’s open potentiality

or what has been referred to above as the body reservoir.

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Performances provide contexts in which a procedural movement piece may become an explicit

manifestation. This manifest experience was described as a transformation to mood and general

affect by the aerobics instructors. Middle-eastern dancers identified a sense of transportation

inspired by the music and the performance. Contemporary dancers identified the potential for

their performances to transform the way every movement piece may be remembered thereafter.

As a form of memory, their procedural movement piece was transformed by the experience of

being witnessed by an audience, and as such was perhaps consolidated in a new way that would

leave the constructive canvas blank. Figure 6 is a pictorial representation of the relationships

between the themes brought together within the metacode on social constraints and effects.

Culture

(Background)
The social ideals pertaining
to the sexed body

Transcendent
Framing the setting effect of
performances

Figure 6. The frame: A pictorial representation of the relationships between the themes
identified as social constraints and effects

Figure 6 portrays a picture frame that represents the overarching culture of any given society.

Culture is thus interpreted as a frame within which individuals come to understand themselves.

Within that frame are value systems pertaining to the sexed body which operate as contexts

within which we understand social expectations about bodily related phenomena such as

femininity and standards about physical beauty, about womanhood, and about women in

movement and performance. It is within this background or contextual landscape that the
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participants described their efforts to frame their performance settings. In the best of situations,

the framing of the setting offered participants a context within which the overarching cultural

values and social ideals might be examined, framed off or temporally suspended. The experience

of transcendence in performances was a dimension of the participants’ experience that lay

outside the framing of the setting, but ironically, is also available and held together because of

the effect of that same frame. Transgressive behavior by audience members, that is where

conventions associated with tact or the rituals associated with performances may be

misinterpreted or ignored, disrupts the performers efforts to frame the setting and thus has the

potential to subject them to value systems outside the performance context.

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CHAPTER SEVEN

DISCUSSION

This chapter begins with a discussion of the strengths and limitations of the design of the present

study. This appraisal is then used as the basis upon which the findings presented in the previous

chapter are discussed. Section 7.2 thus examines the findings organized by the three

metacodes, described in the previous chapter, in light of the research questions. Each sub-

section within Section 7.2 briefly recapitulates the central concepts pertaining to the body image,

evaluates the extent to which Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory helps to identify those central

concepts and, conversely, considers the extent to which the data reflect experiences that

Schilder failed to account for in his theory. Each section also examines how the findings relate to

the broader literature both within psychology and related disciplines. Finally, this chapter

concludes with an appraisal of the present study’s findings in relation to the research questions

first presented in Section 3.6.2 above.

7.1 Limitations and strengths of the study

This study was designed as an exploration of the dynamic body image within the context of

movement and performance. The study design necessarily has limitations and strengths, and

these must be evaluated in order to allow valid interpretation of the findings. The several aspects

identified as relevant, refer to the sampling, the semi-structured interviews, the theory-led

approach and the nature of exploration. Each discussion of potentially limiting factors is followed

by consideration of any associated advantages. In other words a balanced evaluation of each

aspect is presented.
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7.1.1 Sampling

Two aspects of the sampling might be regarded as limitations to the generalizability of the

findings. Firstly, it is evident that no male participants were invited to take part in the present

study and that greater emphasis has been given to the specificity of experiences described by

female participants. This design choice aimed to reduce theoretical and methodological

complexity, but might also be considered to impose significant limits on the extent to which the

findings may have relevance to in the wider population. This latter judgment has substantial

support from a methodological point of view, but from a theoretical perspective this study

provides a viable illustration of dynamic construction, no matter what one’s sex. Schilder

(1935/1978) was aware of the role that one’s experience of the sexed body and its social

meanings play in the construction of the body image. His study of psychoanalysis prepared him

for that. So while it has been necessary in the present study to consider dynamic construction

from the epistemology of the female body only, it is proposed that Schilder’s theory would

necessarily have relevance to the epistemology of the male body too, but in a different way.

The second limitation may be attributed to the procedure of snowball sampling. This method can

promote a situation where the sample attracts participants with shared opinions. Social and

professional networks were used to recruit participants in this study and it is likely that the

snowballing procedure attracted participants with similar ideas about their movement practice.

For example, Table 1 indicated that three of the Middle-eastern dancers were studying the

Alexander technique at the time they were interviewed. In spite of these concerns, it is expected

that the advantages of the sampling procedure outweigh any limitations it may have. Snowball

sampling is considered advantageous in qualitative and exploratory research especially, since it

provides an opportunity to recruit willing and interested participants within a relatively short period

of time. Shared ideas held by participants about their movement practice thus need not be

interpreted as a problem for the transferability of the findings but rather, in context of exploration,

can provide opportunities through which to explore detail and extract rich descriptions from

participants. In addition, this sampling procedure can be interpreted as having promoted the

interview process, since all participants responded to the interview process with great
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enthusiasm. It may thus be inferred that the networks and relationships through which the

sampling strategy passed, actually enhanced the quality of the data that were finally gathered.

While snowball sampling may not permit the findings to be generalized to a wider population, in

the present study it was exceedingly efficacious for an exploration of Schilder’s (1935/1978)

theory and especially of its internal validity as a psychological theory. The snowball sampling thus

provided an opportunity whereby the criterion validity of Schilder’s assumptions and his dynamic

approach could be examined. So while, at face value, this study is an examination of a very

unique group of women, it has provided a departure point from which to consider that theory in a

far wider range of population groups. The implications of this are discussed in Section 8.1 in the

next chapter.

7.1.2 Semi-structured interviewing

Research designs applying semi-structured interviews do not anticipate that each interview will

develop within a standardized format. For example, Section 6.2 above described how some

participants’ contributions were cited more often and in greater depth that others. Structured

questionnaires, on the other hand, have a far greater chance of eliciting standardized responses

from research participants. However, from the point of view of critical realism and an

epistemology of naturalistic inquiry, semi-structured interviews are far more advantageous. The

strength this procedure is its capacity to encourage participants, with more in-depth ideas, to

elaborate as far as the topic permits. The value attributed to representativeness in quantitative

research is thus reconsidered in qualitative research due to the opportunity for

comprehensiveness. Qualitative research methods aim to grasp what may be unique to each

participant, and organize data from the idiographic worldview. Participants in the present study

were able to elaborate freely and each contribution was evaluated as a representation of each

participant’s overall knowledge, rather than as a weakness in the research method.

Having said that, it is important to note that as an exploratory exercise this study used very

general ideas in structuring this interview protocol. The findings thus need to be considered in
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terms of an emerging set of parameters through which we can begin to think about the body

image outside the structural-functional model. Those emerging parameters include the role of

holistic ideas and procedural movement in enabling the incorporation of body awareness into the

general view of the body image.

7.1.3 Theory-led research

Theory-led research necessarily interposes specific value systems onto the observation of

empirical phenomena. In actuality, these values constitute a platform and are the very means by

which observation takes place. Values contained within theory are, thereby, a medium by which

the salience of ‘the new’ might be induced. Theory-led research stands in stark contrast to that

expected by the logical positivist paradigm, which considers its objectivism to be value-neutral

and thereby the most accurate point of view suitable for empirical study. Theory-led and

objectivist researches are characterized by opposed values that cannot be reconciled. From the

point of view of objectivism, theory is thought to distort direct and accurate observations. From

the point of view of theory-led approaches, values contribute to the transparency of one’s

observations, and enable an evaluation of the research act based upon heuristic merit, rather

than solely according to rules concerning methodological protocol. The present study has taken

the latter position and deems the transparency of the values, adopted herein, to have provided an

important contribution to the present study. Theory-led research in this context has provided

strength to the quality of the present study, since greater transparency supports methodological

rigor.

Further to the role of theory, it might be considered that Schilder’s (1935/1978) style of

description presents significant limitations to empirical research in psychology. For example, his

writing lacked a degree of specificity. He did not operationalize his concepts or provide formal

definitions that could be transferred directly from the theoretical context into a methodological

one. By contrast, it has been noted, that psychological researchers have tried to do this with the

first sentence of his introduction, but found that strategy has produced an inadequate basis for

the empirical study of the body image. It needs to be underlined then, that it is the scope of
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Schilder’s theory and its potential to broaden the level of detail that can be observed in empirical

research, that makes it such a suitable framework for the study of the body image. Schilder may

not have applied a great deal of rigor in the way he transcribed his observations into text but, it

can be argued, that he exercised a high level of rigor in capturing the character of the body image

by triangulating his observations epistemologically. In other words, Schilder considered the role

of the body image across contexts such as psychological development, clinical neurology, the

etiology of psychopathology and, most importantly, in normal experience.

It might be argued, then, that the generalizability of the current study’s findings to the treatment of

body image disturbances, as they are currently understood in the psychological literature, is

limited. For example, this project was not designed to evaluate the role of risk factors in the

formation of body image disturbances, but sought to explore individuals’ awareness of the body

image in everyday life. In spite of this, it is the opinion here that the present study does provide

fresh light to normal and psychopathological experience and thereby the clinical variations in that

experience for individuals with body image disturbances. Schilder’s theory provides a basis for

understanding the nature of dynamic construction as played out in everyday life and in

psychological illness. The implications of this are discussed in Section 8.2 in the next chapter.

As mentioned previously, a significant limitation of Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory is that he did not

specify the effect that the sexed body may have on the development and construction of the body

image. He did, however, note amongst his principles concerning the effect of the libidinous

relationships of infancy, that the touches of others and the comments by others influence body

image construction. In his defence, then, it must be noted that while he did not specify

construction in the context of a sexed body, he organized dynamic construction in such a way

that it could account for culturally determined values that lend shape to the construction of both

female and male experience.

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7.1.4 Exploration

Exploration is, at once, both a limitation and a strength. The exploratory design applied in the

present study provided an opportunity to broaden the context in which body image is generally

understood in the discipline of psychology. It thus provided the potential to generate questions in

addition to answering them, and thereby a situation in which taken-for-granted assumptions held

within the discipline about the body mage, might be revealed. While such disruption is considered

a virtue from a critical realist position, it might be misinterpreted as chaotic and poorly focused if

considered only from the point of view of the logical positivist paradigm. Exploratory research

thus demands that some traditional beliefs about empirical rigor be suspended, while the full

context of exploration is elaborated.

The strength of exploratory research in psychology is that it can generate questions and higher

order theory about the psychological subject from the knowledge it engenders. At its best,

exploration has the potential to promote interdisciplinary study and, in psychology, it has the

potential to support greater critical awareness of the role that psychological ideas play in the

discursive construction of illness, or what Rose (1997) referred to as the assemblage of “the

modern self” (p. 224). Exploration thus can create a situation in which our most familiar ideas

about human psychology can be disrupted and questioned. Out of the emergent chaos, the

exploratory domain can provide the opportunity to promote a context of discovery that, as noted

in Chapter four, Lincoln and Guba (1985) once identified as being important to the transformation

of the social sciences.

7.1.5 Overview of the limitations and strengths

At the basis of this discussion of the limitations and strengths of the present study is the

paradigm, outlined in Section 4.3, that was employed. This paradigm was characterized

according to a critical realist stance about the nature of knowledge and underpinned by basic

beliefs attributed to naturalistic inquiry in order to define a transparent structure for the research
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act. The evaluation of the limitations and strengths reflects that paradigm and the beliefs it

contains.

The paradigm employed by the present study has elevated the status of internal validity, that is,

the criterion validity of the body image as it is understood in psychology, to a level of importance

generally ascribed only to external validity in psychological research. Additionally, it has enabled

the present study to re-visit a theoretical proposition that, for many years, has been overlooked

and discredited in the discipline of psychology, and most importantly it has advanced the

credibility of the role and relevance that lay knowledge can play in the construction of

psychological knowledge.

7.2 Discussion of the findings

Chapter two presented a description and appraisal of Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory. In

considering the historical significance of his work it was noted that his interest in neurology and

psychoanalysis gave him the opportunity to consider the relationship between the biological body

and the felt reality of the body that, in his formulation, is the dynamic construction of the body

image. In so doing, he is commended in certain circles for developing the neurological ideas first

attributed to Head and Holmes (1911-12) into a psycho-physiological event and dynamic, rather

than simply a physiological structure. His theory thus presents a holistic approach on the body

image, the character of which is not fixed, but rather is in continual construction.

Construction and creative construction have been considered also in the wider academic

literature. For example, Chapter one noted that neuroscientific authors have suggested that the

body image is constructed from an organic and fundamental capacity subtended by the body

schema (Gallagher & Cole, 1995/1998; Gallagher & Meltzoff, 1996). In philosophy, Metzinger

(2003) has repeated this claim and argued that the self-referential perception associated with

bodily movement, that is proprioception, has a direct relationship to the achievement of a

psychological sense of bodilyness that Federn (1952) attributed to ego feeling. In a different vein,

it was noted also that Wallon’s (1954/1984) interpretation of kinesthetic perception drew a direct
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relationship between the attainment of that sense of bodilyness through movement and the

initiation of psychological development in the infant. Finally, Sheets-Johnstone (2000) argued, in

a more radical way, that human motility supports an experiential context within which rudimentary

development in the human infant proceeds and is generated.

Schilder’s (1935/1978) observations of the role of movement and of the activity of dynamic

construction in the formation of the body image thus do not represent antiquated notions, but

have an enduring quality that is only now coming into full light. The sections presented below

consider the relevance of those ideas as they were reflected in the findings, and with respect to

the wider literature.

7.2.1 Constructive activity and the emergence of a sense of bodilyness

The comments presented in Section 7.2 above, underline Schilder’s (1935/1978) observation that

movement is vital to body image construction in both child development and adult experience.

His theory of dynamic construction identified the continual activity of perception and its

synaesthetic character as the basis upon which to observe that activity. He also made use of his

neurological and psychoanalytic training, as well as the Gestalt psychology of his day, to think

through what construction might mean at the level of experience.

Schilder’s (1935/1978) description and synthesis of these traditions was efficacious in building an

understanding of the role of movement both in psychological development and the maintenance

of psychological wellbeing. It also provided a basis through which to imagine how a sense of

bodilyness might be considered from the point of view of psychological development. Figure 5,

presented previously in Chapter six and reproduced below, portrays the organization of

constructive activity as it pertains to the themes that emerged from the present study.
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The execution of Conceptual material Acquired learning

movement

Anticipatory plans Organizing point

Abstract concepts
Finding the body The movement-
thought relationship

Technique

Vague Active process Concrete

experience experience

Figure 5. Diagrammatic summary of constructive activity themes

What Figure 5 offers, is a diagrammatic representation of how to think about constructive activity

in the context of a temporally organized phenomenon like movement. It provides a closer

consideration of a sense of bodilyness through the character of the active process. It provides

latitude for the consideration of temporal changes, of the reflective character of the body image,

and of the role that conceptual material plays in organizing that process. It also identifies the

importance of acquired learning, although perhaps a more accurate description would be tacit

knowledge, in the development of a sense of bodilyness.

7.2.1.1 The execution of movement: The role of anticipatory plans

Chapter two presented Schilder’s (1935/1978) understanding of the anticipatory plan as a germ

contained within every movement, that may or may not be part of one’s conscious awareness. He

referred to the anticipatory plan as a gnostic image, that is, knowledge that has some relationship

to visual perception, but to which he attributed less conscious aspects of perception, thought and

experience.

In this study it was presumed that anticipatory plans underlie all movement and are the germ

material through which movement training is acquired and executed. This assumption

acknowledged the non-conscious character of the anticipatory plan described by Schilder

(1935/1978), but at the same time recognized that the subjective experience of movement
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supplies referents upon which those plans might be imagined. As the germ of every movement,

anticipatory plans are thus non-conscious but are experienced as cognition in action. Movement

can thus be imagined as having a spatially organized, affectively driven structure or image

through which it is directed. A number of participants described being able to subjectively

observe units of movement in action that reflected the idea of the anticipatory plan. They also

described being able to imagine those units of movement retrospectively or prospectively, as

though they were part of a psychological structure, or web of procedural acts, that one participant

referred to as a “physical world”. Strictly speaking it is uncertain as to whether these two

phenomena are aligned, and it would be too reductive to assert that they are. Nevertheless both

can be said to play an integral part in constructive activity and thus are the basis of what De Oreo

and Williams (1980) referred to as body insight.

What Schilder’s (1935/1978) description of the anticipatory plan encapsulated for this study was

the sequential organization and spatial experience of the movement as well as the variations

played out in the in-between moment linking the execution of each action. For example,

Stephanie described her anticipatory plans through the notion of body comfort, which focuses

upon the quality of action linking the execution of one anticipatory plan to the next. This idea

suggested that the sequential and demonstrative aspects of her anticipatory plans were

organized not simply as spatial representations for her intention, but also according to a quality of

attention that permitted her to examine how each plan linked to the next. Her anticipatory plans

thus included her experience of kinetic fluidity, and thus provided her with a very intimate

knowledge of her kinesthetic perception. The organization of those plans, or at least the referents

representing them, provided what was for the participants of the present study, the basis of a

physical world or conceptual understanding of the body, that might also be referred to as a more

concrete experience of one’s bodilyness.

Schilder’s (1935/1978) description of the anticipatory plan brings into clearer focus the

relationship between the cognizance of the anticipatory plan and, what has been referred to as

body awareness. It thus presents a means by which to consider the context in which body

awareness is developed and how it pertains to the treatment of psychological and physical
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illness. This association was described previously in Section 3.3.4 through the work of Malmgren-

Olsson, et al. (2001), Wallin, et al. (2000), Mattsson, et al. (1998 & 1997) and Friis, et al. (1989).

7.2.1.2 The execution of movement: The effort to find the body

Chapter two presented Schilder’s (1935/1978) understanding of the importance of finding the

body as a rudimentary and radical stage in understanding the execution of ordinary movement.

According to Schilder, movement is never automatic. Rather he noted that it is always preceded

by a mental effort aimed at finding the place from which to initiate that movement. However, the

task to find the body was described by him as largely an unconscious aspect of perception

involved in all human action that is directed by the visual, kinesthetic and tactile systems.

The experience of finding the body was identified in comments by participants in the present

study through ideas such as being tuned-in to the body, and having a finely calibrated attention to

the body. Such comments by participants also demonstrated that finding the body can be

developed and refined into a very conscious activity that one participant referred to as mindful

attention. Schilder’s description of the effort to find the body thus enabled the observation of body

image construction at the level of participant’s reflective intentionality. It has also enabled an

observation of the role that reflective intentionality plays in the acquisition of procedural

movement or movement training. It is noteworthy that reflective intentionality was identified by

Gallagher and Cole (1995/1998) as being a central characteristic of human perception associated

directly with the body image.

When participants practised a more mindful or consciously directed undertaking to find the body,

they greatly enhanced the conceptual clarity of what their own physical world could be for them.

Some participants in the present study described their effort to find the body in such detail that

they implied that they could conceivably attend to the extension, velocity, flexion and tension of

every anticipatory plan, or the feedback that every movement provides on bodily orientation,

posture, and balance. One participant referred to her experience of finding the body as “coming

back to the body”, which identified how movement practice had a significant effect on her
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experience of bodilyness. Differences in the capacity to find the body amongst participants could

be accounted for by the style of movement they each studied, but more specifically, the

differences were accounted for by the quality of the training each participant had undertaken. The

sophistication with which participants described their imagined world of action was greatly

influenced by the conceptual material proffered by such training. The role of conceptual material

is discussed further in Section 7.2.1.3 below.

The quality of attention used when finding the body is an important factor in body image

construction. While Schilder (1935/1978) did not emphasize this fact, it has not gone unnoticed

by authors in the wider literature. It was noted in Section 3.4.3 previously that Tiemersma (1989)

recommended the importance of being able to attend closely and consciously to the body during

physical training, as a means to improve the qualitative experience of the body image. Schilder’s

theory thus enlightens us to the knowledge that finding the body plays a foundational role in

construction. However it should be noted that movement exemplifies just one modality through

which that construction may take place. In Section 1.4.2 above it was mentioned that the effort to

find ever-newer aspects of the body experience could also be enacted through introspection.

There it was noted that Solms and Turnbull (2002) had recognized that subpersonal layers of

brain activity may become part of conscious thought, that is constructed, through a combination

of introspection and language. Finding the body and body image construction might thus be

considered analogous to the transformation of unconscious experience into conscious thought.

As a final note, it is probable that what De Oreo and Williams (1980) referred to as the refined

kinesthetic figure-ground perception found in the physically trained body, is the outcome of

having more mindful attention. Those authors, however, presented this refinement in the context

of motor development only. Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory, on the other hand, presented a

psychological perspective on the relationship between the execution of movement and body

image construction. His description of the effort required in finding the body thus allows us to

develop a picture of psychological emergence as an effect of a refinement in one’s kinesthetic

figure-ground perception. His theory thus can be read as a portrayal of the relationship between

perception, reflective intentionality and the emergence of adult psychology.

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7.2.1.3 The role of conceptual material

Schilder (1935/1978) did not greatly emphasize the role of conceptual material in body image

construction, although Section 2.4.2.2 above noted that he had observed that one could only

reach the body through pictures provided by the outside world. The role of conceptual material

has been more clearly identified through the study of the effect of movement therapies presented

in Section 3.3.4.1 above. Those studies outlined the positive effect that movement therapy can

have in the treatment of both physical and psychological conditions. Those studies demonstrated

also that conceptual material, represented by a theoretically cohesive framework on the

relationship between body and mind, when combined with movement therapy, can produce better

outcomes in treatment because of the way it serves the organization of the relationship between

movement and a sense of bodilyness. A number of participants in the present study described

their attempts to extend or transform the quality of attention they used to find the body through

the use of conceptual material, identified in the findings as abstract concepts. While all

participants used abstract concepts of some kind to understand their movement, the quality or

character of those abstract concepts effected a pronounced influence on the extent to which the

body might be found.

While conceptual material plays a marginal role in Schilder’s (1935/1978) description of dynamic

construction, he did recognize that there is interaction between different levels of body

experience, and that this interaction functions in two directions. As noted previously in Section

2.7, Schilder asserted that there is the top-down interaction between conscious thought and

subpersonal bodily processes, as well as the bottom-up interaction. This assertion differs

somewhat from the assumptions underlying the experimental example presented by

Ramachandran and Rogers-Ramachandran (2000), who described only a bottom-up description

of the relationship between underlying processes and conscious thought.

Schilder’s (1935/1978) understanding of the body image did not confine itself to physiology, but

rather he represented it as a psycho-physiological sphere of experience (see Section 2.2.1

above). According to Schilder, the connections constructed within this sphere were most simply
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understood if the relationship between physiology and psychology were identified from the point

of view of a top-down interaction. In other words, that psychological experience was interpreted

as the greater influence upon physiological functioning than the reverse. While Schilder did not

identify the role of conceptual material precisely, his understanding of this top-down relationship

certainly provided the basis upon which to recognize the nature of the effect that conceptual

material has upon the organization of the body image in the present study.

7.2.1.4 Acquired learning: The emergence of a movement-thought relationship

Schilder’s (1935/1978) core proposition on the need to find the body highlighted how an

introspective task like finding the body, when combined with suitable conceptual material, can

transform or construct the body image in a highly specific way. The acquired learning

represented by the movement-thought relationship thus identifies the effect of one style of

transformation. This transformation has an interdependent relationship with the quality of the

conceptual material made available.

Some participants in the present study demonstrated a capacity to be mindful of

correspondences between their use of conceptual material, and gains they perceived in the

sophistication of their movement. This movement-thought relationship was encapsulated by one

participant through the notion that she could consciously attend to her kinesthetic system with

such acuity that she described it as a “listening ability”. This description depicted a very refined,

subtle and acute portrayal of the kinesthetic perceptual system transformed by years of

movement training. The movement-thought relationship thus brings to light connections between

introspective activities like finding the body, and permanent change in one’s psychological

constitution that, Deutsch (1944) previously associated with the construction of the female body

image and the development of feminine intuition, another sensitive listening ability (see Section

5.2.1.1 above).

According to Deutsch (1944), the body image of every female would consistently construct a

capacity for feminine intuition given that, according to her, the female needs to incorporate a
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sense of her internal organs into her body image. Deutsch’s position therefore was that there is a

constructive relationship between the biological specificity of one’s own body, socio-cultural

values pertaining to that body and the way the body image is subsequently constructed. In her

analysis, these elements combine to give shape to a perceptual sensibility she referred to as

feminine intuition as a direct effect of the information gleaned about one’s actual (female) body

over time. Her understanding of the development of feminine intuition, however, did not differ

greatly from the way participants in this study described the establishment of a movement-

thought relationship. Deutsch assumed, as they did, that there is a change in the body image that

derives from a process. This process, like Schilder’s (1935/1978) active process, presents

aspects of body experience to thought.

Deutsch’s (1944) understanding of the body image thus relied upon the same assumption

suggested by Schilder’s (1935/1978) description of the active process, that one’s awareness or

listening ability is refined by a process in which vague perception slowly becomes more concrete

or conscious. However, Deutsch did not take into account the role of movement, but nevertheless

assumed as Schilder did before her, that the unconscious and the plasticity of the body image

play a role in the development of that body image. Schilder’s theory thus provides a means by

which to imagine the diversity with which body images may be constructed, while also identifying

the means by which individuals may share certain constructions. Sharing the same biological sex

category certainly represents one parameter through which aspects of one’s body image may be

shared between individuals. However the role of movement and conceptual material involved in

body image construction suggest that no two body images, or listening abilities, could ever be

constructed in the same way.

7.2.1.5 Acquired learning: The organizing point

Chapter three presented Grosz’ (1994) description of the body image as an organizing point that

establishes a sense of constancy and stability for subjectivity. Schilder (1935/1978) did not use

the expression organizing point, but used the notion of the gestalt to identify successive

constructions achieved through the active process. During the data analysis of the present study,
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the expression ‘organizing point’ provided a succinct label for the anchoring effect that feelings of

personal integration proffered the participants.

The organizing point circumscribed descriptions of what might best be referred to as personal

constructions on the nature of the body image. Each personal construction had a quality unique

to the individual, but there was also something given about the structure of the constructions

across the sample. For example, all the participants observed the emergence of a construction or

organizing point on their body with two sides. These two sides were identified by the participants

as being inside and outside. Freud’s (1923/1986) description of the bodily ego, presented in

Section 1.3.1 above, also acknowledged an inside and an outside.

Schilder (1935/1978) recognized the two-sided character of the bodily ego, but in his description

of the tri-dimensional body image he also recognized that what might be referred to as ‘the

inside’, was not necessarily psychologically delimited by the geometric space taken up by the

physical body. Across his three dimensions, the inside and the outside exist tacitly, but are not

always easy to conceptualize. Schilder’s recounting of patients’ pathological symptoms, for

example, often directly reflected disturbances in the organization of an inside and an outside, and

according to Schilder, normal experience was also vulnerable to confusion in relation to the

organization of the inside and the outside of the body image. His description of the sociology of

the body image, for example, identified how in that dimension, the space of the body image

extended beyond the space of the physical body and incorporated the socio-cultural context

giving shape to personal meaning. Schilder’s description of the physiological dimension, on the

other hand, also presented experiences of confusion between inside and outside. The most

pertinent of these is identifiable in the subjective experience of phantom phenomena.

The two sides of Freud’s (1923/1986) bodily ego, presented here through the notion of the

organizing point, follow the lines of human perception in Schilder’s understanding. In line with that

notion, the later work of Anzieu (1989) and the descriptions given by the participants of this study,

the point of demarcation between inside and outside can be characterized by perceptual

experiences that come together at the location of one’s skin. The findings of the present study,
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however, suggest also that the experience of the organizing point may also have a relationship to

one’s musculo-skeletal system or kinetic experience. This additional element may be the

ingredient through which movement initiates a more plastic experience of the body image. The

notion that movement enhances the plasticity of the body image is one that links back to Schilder

(1935/1978).

The organizing point presented by this study can thus be interpreted as a psychological

representation of the actual presence of one’s own body. As an aspect of the body image it

provides a sense of bodilyness and is an anchoring point for psychological experience because it

is built upon the actual presence of one’s own body. The psychological role of movement in this

formulation thus assists the perception of the actual body. This perception is refined and made

available to dynamic construction. Perception also has an ontogenetic relationship to the capacity

for that construction across time. In other words, it is the resource enabling the activity of

dynamic construction as well as the constructive activity driving it. Perceptual experiences that do

not verify the actual presence of one’s own body, but perhaps confuse one’s own body image

with that of others, are generally associated with pathological experience (Sims, 1995), although

there are exceptions. These exceptions in normal experience were identified by Schilder

(1935/1978) with the plasticity of the body image.

The dynamic construction of the body image and the experience of the organizing point thus

entails that the individual develop an accurate perception of the parameters of the actual body.

Movement plays an important role in body image construction because these parameters are

delineated by the execution of movement. The requirement described by Schilder (1935/1978) to

reconstruct the body image, time and time again, reflects the underlying plasticity of the body

image and the temporal or evanescent conditions in which perceptual experience is founded.

What is given within the structure of the organizing point is its two-sided organization, and that is

associated with the actual experience of one’s own physical body. The outside is represented in

the social meanings in which the body is understood, while the inside has, to some degree, been

conceptualized through the notion of the kinetic/tactile-kinesthetic/affective body described by

Sheets-Johnstone (2002).
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7.2.1.6 Acquired learning: The development of technique

Schilder (1935/1978) had very little to say about movement as a specific technical style. His sole

remarks relating to matters of style identified only that stage dancing could have a positive effect

on the body image of women. His observation identified that stage dancing provided a sense of

physical freedom.

While every style of movement has a unique aesthetic built upon the way its anticipatory plans

are executed, the participants in this study each described their technique as having acquired

characteristics associated with personal expression. Each participant thus came to understand

her movement, not only in relation to the anticipatory plans she had learnt, but also in relation to

the place that her movement occupied in relation to her creative or psychological life. Through

the theory of dynamic construction, it is thus possible to reason that the relationship between the

execution of a rule-governed set of anticipatory plans and the place of one’s movement in

psychological life, is mediated by the way the kinetic/ tactile-kinesthetic/affective body transforms

it into personal experience. This transformation takes place because each individual will enact his

or her movement through the body that he or she each comes to ‘find’ and, also, in relation to his

or her intention. These remarks reflect in part those presented in Section 3.3 above by Rothfield

(1992), who argued that the character of one’s embodiment was contingent upon the way one’s

movement is enacted. The role of intentionality was identified at an earlier point in the present

paper, through the work of Gallagher and Cole (1995/1998) (Section 1.2.2.1). The development

of a personal technique and the character of one’s embodiment are thus contingent upon the

reflective intentionality attributed to the body image.

7.2.1.7 The active process and the character of dynamic construction

Schilder’s (1935/1978) description of the active process helped to qualify the structure and detail

of dynamic construction for empirical study, and highlighted the character of its emergence. The

interpretation by Schilder that the active process begins as a relatively vague experience that

becomes more concrete was identified in ten of the fifteen participants in the present study. The
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theoretical advantage of Schilder ‘s formulation is that it helps identify that not all movement is

the same with respect to the construction of the body image. The performance of contemporary

dance, Middle-eastern dance and aerobics may all potentially produce the same effect on the

pulse rate, but as different kinds of procedural movement they cannot be characterized as having

the same effect on body image construction. Intuitively this presents itself without the aid of

theory, but without Schilder’s theory it is less clear what aspect pertaining to each of these three

movement styles has the greatest influence on body image construction. With the aid of

Schilder’s theory, it can be observed that a process takes place in which the emergence of more

concrete experience in relation to the actual presence of the body is the effect that helps to

differentiate them. One participant described this process through the notion that her movement

was a form of research. This research enabled her to become more acquainted with a sentience

she attributed to her physical body but with which she could become more concretely aware.

The active process thus provides a temporally structured, or diachronic, framework through which

to organize an understanding of the gestalt constructions to which Schilder (1935/1978) referred.

It also gives clarity to the nature of reflective intentionality described above, and crispness to the

conceptual relationship between the quality of one’s movement and the character of one’s

embodiment, by linking all these to the dynamic construction of the body image.

7.2.1.8 Overview: Constructive activity and the sense of bodilyness

A sense of bodilyness emerges primarily as tacit knowledge, and Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory

provides the means by which to examine that emergence more closely. In the present study it

enabled the observation that the anticipatory plans, associated with every style of movement, not

only provide the means by which one may acquire new movement, but also a basis upon which

the acquisition of movement may be organized. That organization is established by way of an

effort involved in finding the body that, when combined with abstract concepts, provides the

means through which to construct that ‘find’ more consciously. The movement-thought

relationship that may be established by that effort and construction, will be determined by one’s

perception of the actual presence of the body in movement which, in turn, will be moderated by
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the latitude given to the unconscious and the plasticity of the body image. These moderators,

discussed in Section 7.2.2 below, establish the extent to which the inside, or a sense of

psychological integrity, and the outside context are accorded a conscious place in the dynamic

construction of the body image.

Schilder’s (1935/1978) dynamic construction had its conceptual roots in the activity of binding

that Freud (1940/1986) attributed to the life instinct. As such it represented a theoretical means

by which psychological experience could be understood in the context of a psycho-physiological

process. Psychologically speaking, the binding created through movement brings about a feeling

of bodily coherence that, one participant identified as a feeling of being grounded. Kinesthetic

perception plays an essential role in the binding associated with dynamic construction because it

provides a definitive source of information on the singularity each individual comes to identify as

his or her own body. From the point of view of both Sheets-Johnstone (2002) and dynamic

construction, movement is thus a rudimentary medium or domain through which the construction

of evanescent bodily experience becomes a psychological feeling of bodily unity.

From the point of view of constructive activity, movement is an eloquent means by which the

organizing point may be delineated. It thus serves to establish more concrete perception of and

an experiential anchor for the actual presence of the body in psychological life. It thus gives

shape to the body image we come to find as our own.

7.2.2 The body reservoir and the resources of the body image

The themes presented as part of the body reservoir identified aspects pertaining to the

potentiality of the body image and to its function as a psychological resource in dynamic

construction. The unconscious and the impulse or need to move have been brought together in

this discussion since both have the character of the unconscious according to Schilder’s

(1935/1978) descriptions. Section 3.5.2 presented Schilder’s unconscious as a sphere of

consciousness in which “processes … go on in the background of our minds” (p. 175). He also

described unconscious experience through the notion that “…there is more in our body image
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than we can consciously know about our body” (p. 13). Both the impulse and the need to move

can be identified as part of this broad sphere of experience by these descriptions.

7.2.2.1 The resources of the unconscious and the impulse or need to move

The findings of this study demonstrated that Schilder’s (1935/1978) theoretical conceptualization

of the unconscious, namely that there is more to our own body than we can consciously know, is

a reasonable proposition especially given the acquisition of learning described by participants,

and referred to here, as constructive activity. One aspect of the unconscious was evident in the

observation by some participants that there was more to their movement than they could

consciously describe. Additionally some participants also made use of concepts such as ‘holding

patterns’ and the notion of a ‘body story’ as a means by which to link the idea of an unconscious

to their personal experience. Others were further able to recognize that holding patterns could be

conceptualized in the effort to find the body, and thus lead them to substantive material from

which greater self-knowledge might arise. The unconscious was thus given a different character

by each individual, but understood by all the participants as a means by which to develop a fuller

experience of their embodiment. The unconscious is thus central to any holistic understanding of

the body image and movement.

As Section 1.4.2 above explained, Solms and Turnbull (2002) described the unconscious as

subpersonal layers of brain activity associated with human consciousness. What makes the

unconscious un-conscious, according to those authors, was simply the fact that not all brain

activity, especially “the mind’s actual processes” (p. 72), can be presented to conscious thought

or perception. In this context, holding patterns and a body story may be understood as aspects of

unconscious life that have become unconscious because of the effect of inhibitory processes

operating in the background of experience. The transformation of such inhibitory processes,

according to the participants in the present study, comes about when, in the effort to find the

body, light is shone upon the unknown or unobserved. In other words, the unconscious is brought

to light.
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The discipline of psychology entertains a fairly ambivalent stance in relation to the role of the

unconscious in empirical research. While the discipline acknowledges that unconscious

behaviors exist, it tends to ignore the role that an unconscious may play in our theoretical

understanding of the body image and in psychological life in general. The relationship between

the unconscious, the quality of attention given to it and the quality of one’s physical and

psychological wellbeing, however, has empirical support in the study of body awareness and

psychological treatment featured in Section 3.3.4 above, as well as in the findings of the present

study. It also has a long tradition in psychodynamic literature pertaining to technique. The

unconscious thus represents one aspect of the body image that requires further consideration

within the discipline of psychology in future research.

7.2.2.2 The resource provided by body image plasticity

Section 1.2.3 in Chapter one, noted how Ramachandran and Rogers-Ramachandran (2000) and

others were able to demonstrate how the body image can be manipulated, and those authors

noted also that this ability derives from a fundamental plasticity and dynamic structure they

associated with human brain function. The plasticity, to which Schilder (1935/1978) referred, on
1
the other hand, would necessarily have to acknowledge a plastic and dynamic brain , but he

placed his emphasis upon plasticity he observed within the psycho-physiological sphere of

experience. In other words, Schilder was interested in subjective experience and the normal,

plastic changes that were reported about that experience.

Schilder’s (1935/1978) observations on the plasticity of the body image were efficacious in the

interpretation of participant experiences. They were efficacious most specifically because a

number of such observations might not otherwise have been recognized with respect to the body

image, had that theory not guided the analysis. To recapitulate in brief, some participants

identified plasticity with respect to the dynamic potentiality of the human central nervous system,

while for others it contributed to the opportunity for transcendent experiences. One participant

1
Schilder (1935/1978) made no comments about a plastic brain structure per se.
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observed the plasticity of the body image from having taught movement. Her comments

highlighted the transmission of very personalized, less conscious aspects of her movement and

thus the context in which appersonization, or the plastic and imaginary acquisition of another’s
2
body parts, might be understood. Schilder (1935/1978) identified appersonization as one of the

principles of the libidinous structure of the body image, but he did not describe appersonization in

the context of acquiring personalized aspects of another’s movement.

The plasticity of the body image, as described by the participants in this study, comes into play

during performances, in the teaching and learning of movement and in the natural changes that

occur to one’s body over time. As one participant noted, “the body is not a fixed entity”. The

plasticity to which Schilder (1935/1978) referred did not deal simply with the integration of visible

changes in appearance over time, but rather with imaginary changes and the role of creative

construction in the experience of the body image. Section 1.2.3 noted that neuroscientific

observations have identified the ease with which plastic effects can be created in normal

individuals in controlled experiments (Ramachandran, 1998). The conceptual structure of the

body image emerging from that field of research thus compares closely with the phenomenon to

which Schilder referred. Psychological research, on the other hand, has demonstrated little

understanding of the assumptions upon which Schilder organized his ideas, and generally fails to

conceptualize the notion of plasticity beyond the very ordinary capacity to integrate visible

alterations into a representation of one’s bodily appearance. Psychology thus overlooks

experiences wherein the spatiality of the actual body is felt to be transcended, and continues the

tradition, established by the invention of the camera obscura, in which the phenomenal body is

neglected in favor of a visual representation of the body.

2
Chapter two noted that Schilder (1935/1978) referred to appersonization as the tendency for the
libidinous structure of the body image to acquire parts of other individuals’ bodies, that is to
identify with them, as though they were part of one’s own.
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7.2.2.3 The resource that is reflective emotion

Emotion or affect as psychology prefers to call it, is a very salient aspect of body image

experience. Section 1.5.4.2 above, noted that structural-functional research using the

dichotomous model focuses to a large degree on consciously perceived thoughts pertaining to

cognitive, attitudinal and affective aspects of the body image. In contrast, Schilder’s (1935/1978)

theory establishes emotion as a conscious experience of underlying processes, and a criterion

through which to understand the subjective experience of body image cohesion or its failure.

Negative emotion, he suggested, disrupts the coherence of the body image, while self-love is the

glue that provides experiences of cohesion. Participants in the present study varied in the

affective responses they described with regard to their body image. This variation was context

specific.

Some participants described ecstatic states that reinforced their experience of womanliness,

while others described more circumspect experiences organized by cultural expectations. The

performance of movement was identified by others as a means to allay negative, judgmental or

aggressive emotions, while it was also identified as a potential source of negative experience.

Some participants gave little description of their past experiences of emotion, but rather

described the details they attend to in order to control the settings in which they choose to

perform, and thereby organize the limits of their potential experience ahead of time. All these

remarks bring to light the observation made by Schilder (1935/1978) that emotion is a social

experience.

7.2.2.4 The relative intensity of emotion

The interrelationship between the experience of emotion and the specificity of the context reflects

the way Schilder (1935/1978) understood emotion as it pertains to the body image. Schilder’s

framework did not, however, address the relative intensity of one’s experience of emotion in

relation to the body image across time, or in relation to normative data. Such considerations have

largely been the pursuit of structural-functional researches in the discipline of psychology. Hence,
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the present study applied the MBSRQ as a secondary source of data on the sample, in order to

examine how the attitudinal disposition of participants compared with population statistics on the

relative intensity of that disposition with regard to certain aspects of the body image.

In brief, the MBSRQ identified the greater proportion of the present sample as being less

concerned with their appearance and less preoccupied with their weight as compared with the

normative data. It also demonstrated that this sample largely felt their body weight to be within a

normal range, when the norms suggested that women tend more often to consider themselves to

be overweight. There is little that can be emphatically asserted about the relationship between

the qualitative and quantitative findings, but speculation is possible. For example, it is possible to

speculate that the opportunity proffered by movement may serve to transform the socially

constructed relationship established between the actual presence of the body and the perception

of one’s weight. In other words, it potentially heightens an alternative experience in which the

relationship between body weight and one’s intentionality is intensified, while that between body

weight and social expectations becomes less salient. Alternatively, one might also speculate that

the opportunity to find the body and construct the experience of the body image from the inside

might transform the extent to which the social expectations on feminine appearance are felt to

have direct personal relevance. Where two aerobics instructors demonstrated an extreme

preoccupation with their weight, one might further speculate that the learning they had acquired

through their movement did not concurrently permit them to find the body squarely in relation to

their intentionality.

Where Schilder (1935/1978) attributed a cohesive body image to self-love, the MBSRQ and other

scaled assessments on the body image have tended to be interpreted in the discipline of

psychology according to structural entities, rather than underlying processes. Here the MBSRQ

has been compared with the qualitative findings, and that comparison has implied that Schilder’s

theory may offer scope for dispositional measures to be interpreted from a brand new point of

view. However, it must be heeded that measurement techniques bring with them assumptions

that may be in conflict with the holistic assumptions underlying the dynamic theory. They also

contain abstract concepts of their own, like those pertaining to the diagnosis of symptoms, that
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should not be permitted to transform the basic premises underlying Schilder’s description of

normal experience.

7.2.3 Social constraints and effects framing movement performances

The themes brought together as social constraints and effects in this study pertained largely to

parameters within which participants chose to perform or in which they were expected to.

Schilder’s (1935/1978) dynamic theory does not provide the means by which to understand these

conditions. Rather, Schilder characterized the sociology of the body image very much like his

other dimensions, as a dynamic process in which the body image is constructed, but included the

capacity for the body image to extend itself, in an imaginary way, into space. His theory also

implied that the sociology of the body image continually identifies and incorporates bodies and

body parts belonging to other people in order to build up a coherent construction over time.

These aspects of dynamic construction were not clearly evident in the interviews conducted in

the present study. Therefore the sections below pertaining to the social constraints and effects of

performances have been discussed in the context of theory pertaining to social interaction,

framing and the role of discourse, rather than dynamic construction.

7.2.3.1 The frames required for the performance

Goffman (1959) described the way performances are organized and delimited in the context of

social interaction. Section 4.3.2.2 above described how the social conventions, he referred to as

keys, provide a signal for the way settings are defined and demarcated for different kinds of

social performance. Keys may be signaled by the front or persona of the social actor or theatrical

performer, by way of social conventions associated with tact and ritual, alternatively they may be

indicated by way of the physical settings. It was noted in Section 4.3.2.2 that the social

conventions, or keys, come together between the performer and audience as the “command of

an idiom” (Goffman, 1959, p. 65).

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The participants in this study all recognized the importance of either the physical settings in which

they chose to perform, the persona they needed to adopt, or the rituals they relied upon to

organize their performances. However, it was also reported by participants in the present study

that the importance of those social conventions was often at its most salient when the keys to

establishing their performance setting failed. The most obvious of these failures was represented

by transgressive behavior on the part of audience participants. Middle-eastern dancers were the

most likely to be affected by such situations.

All failures to define the setting reported by participants in the sample were described with

respect to difficulties they each faced when inviting their audience-observers to accept the social

conventions within which they preferred to perform. The leadership persona, upon which aerobics

classes are conducted, was identified by the instructors in the sample as the central means by

which they established control over the behavior of their attendees. Some aerobics instructors,

however, found their leadership persona could be ineffectual, or their client group unenthusiastic

if their bodily physique did not comply with broader socio-cultural expectations about female

beauty and fitness. The frame, within which the aerobics instructors perform, thus did not appear

to be organized entirely according to the conventions identified by Goffman (1974), although his

notion of keys and framing were apt in understanding the performance settings used by the

Middle-eastern and contemporary dancers. The frames used by the aerobics instructors, on the

other hand, appeared to be maintained partly by their physical fitness and teaching persona, but

partly also by their compliance to socio-cultural expectations pertaining to beauty and fitness,

which in other words refers to expectations about femininity. Thus the aerobics instructors were

not able to, or perhaps not expected to, frame their performance settings in such a way so as to

delimit the influence of social ideals on feminine beauty.

7.2.3.2 The social ideals framing the value given to the sexed body

Schilder’s (1935/1978) text gave no insight into the relation between social ideals and the

construction of the body image, although he recognized that beauty, an important social ideal, is

always a reflection of the libidinous situation in society. Malson (1998), however, argued that
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social ideals pertaining to femininity, and what Schilder called the libidinous situation, are the

basis upon which psychiatric illnesses, associated specifically with the female sex, come into

being. Her argument suggested that social ideals present very serious and non-negotiable

challenges to the female, and can easily subvert her effort to construct or anchor her subjectivity

and body image in a symbolic way. The problems created for the female participants in the

present study by the social ideal were thus shaped significantly by the way each style of

movement enabled the participants to negotiate those ideals.

The social ideals identified by the participants in the present study were often described as

problematic or difficult. For example, participants who had received training in classical ballet

identified the expectations propagated by ballet schools as central to their understanding of what

the social ideals expected of the female dancer’s body were. They identified those ideals as ever-

present benchmarks to which female dancers are compared, but also described their very

personal attempts to redefine and create new benchmarks for themselves. These newly created

benchmarks represented knowledge acquired through the experience of the moving body, thus

verifying the actual presence of the physical body and anchoring a relationship between physical

and psychological experience. By contrast, one participant identified that a poor resolution of the

conflict between the social ideals and the experience of the actual body could create a poor

relationship to one’s movement through the body image, and thereby heighten the probability of

injury or burnout. All participants experienced the impact of rigid social ideals. These rigid ideals

were represented by standards of beauty associated with the wider society, and were also

identified as the basis of the ‘outside’ view circumscribed by the organizing point.

The Middle-eastern dancers were somewhat unique in that they had the refuge of their alternate

community. In that community, there was constructed a separate set of ideals wherein every

body of every shape and size was deemed to be valuable, although experienced and graceful

dancers were given the greatest respect. The Middle-eastern dancers in the present study

described their movement as having traditional roots in the mysteries of childbirth and the

anatomy of the female reproductive system. The belly dance community and training in Middle-

eastern dance was thus described like a discursive position through which a female body image
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could be constructed and anchored onto the actual female body. In Malson’s (1998) terms, this

community provided the discursive means by which the negative position of femininity could be

rewritten as a positive position.

The relationship that aerobics instructors have with the social ideal was possibly the most

problematic of the three groups. Their role was defined largely by their place within the fitness

industry, that is, as facilitators or role models. They recognized that their industry prized physical

fitness, but also that it markets the appeal of fitness to the community by selling exercise

activities as techniques by which to attain and maintain wellbeing and physical beauty. The

aerobics instructors in the present study recognized their role as both devotees and advocates of

that idea, even though they recognized that the message making used within their industry

distorted the truth to procure custom. They thus emphasized their efforts to construct an ideal for

themselves and their class attendees, based more squarely upon physical wellbeing rather than

physical beauty. The importance of wellbeing was even purported by those aerobics instructors

who scaled highly with respect to their personal preoccupation with weight, as measured by the

MBSRQ. The aerobics instructors in the present study were thus levered into a position of

resistance but had little opportunity to construct a position outside the social ideals of the wider

society. What this theme demonstrates was that not all forms of movement are the same with

respect to the way they positively enable the construction or anchoring of subjectivity.

7.2.3.3 Transcendent experiences framed off

Schilder (1935/1978) commented briefly upon transcendent-like experience, but identified it

largely as an effect of the plasticity of the body image. He noted especially the role that costumes

and ritual have in the transcendent experience of the body image. Further, Critchley (1950)

commented briefly on the experience of the soprano, in performance, feeling as though her body

image could defy the geometric space of her actual body.

All the participants identified uplifting experiences associated with their performances, and a

number identified experiences of transcending the ordinary. Transcendent experiences

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heightened the possibility of enkindling an awareness of the plasticity of the body image. They

offered an opportunity to experience a transformation of the body image for some, while for

others they offered the experience of ecstatic states. Middle-eastern dancers especially,

recognized that there were specific conditions within which such an experience might be made

available to them. They identified the importance of stylistic accoutrements such as the music,

the costume, theatrical arts and even the cultural composition of their audience, as being

meaningful to the composition of the context in which a transcendent-like experience could be

initiated. This observation reflects also what Goffman (1974) identified as the role of ‘keys’ in

establishing a setting for play and playfulness in human social interaction.

Transcendent experience provided an important motivation for the participants to continue with

their movement performances. For example, one participant represented her movement

performance as such a unique context that she referred to it as ‘a little escape’. The framing of

the setting has an important role to play in creating an opportunity for transcendent experience

and was thus an important feature in creating opportunities to explore the plasticity of the body

image.

7.3 Appraising the findings in light of the research questions

The research questions of the present study were first described in Section 3.6.2 above. The first

research question asked whether Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory furnished empirical inquiry with a

suitable framework through which to understand the body image in normal populations. Given the

findings presented in the previous chapter and the discussion above, it can be observed that

Schilder’s theory is most efficacious in elucidating the dynamic aspects of body image

construction. It served to crystallize particular aspects contributing to knowledge acquisition with

respect to the body image, and of the dynamic relationships between different aspects. Of note,

was the way it lent salience to the relationship between finding the body, conceptual material and

both the construction of the organizing point and the formation of a movement-thought

relationship. It also offered a suitable framework through which to explore the relationship

between the unconscious and the movement-thought relationship.

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Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory, however, was not very helpful in examining more closely the

socio-cultural context in which the body image comes into formation. Socio-cultural constraints

associated with the shaping of feminine subjectivity, like those described by Malson (1998),

presented a description of the limits within which the female body image may be constructed.

Such constraints were identifiable in the talk and text of the interviews conducted by the present

study, but Schilder’s theory did not provide a framework through which to examine, more closely,

the relationship between those constraints and the construction of the body image. Rather,

Schilder’s ontological premises directed this inquiry into the relationship between the subjective

experience of the actual presence of the body, and the nature of construction in psychological

experience. His description of the plasticity of the body image permitted some appreciation of the

nature of the transformations experienced around performances. However, those transformations

could not be reasoned psychologically and with respect to the body image, without an

appreciation of the effect that keys and framing have in maintaining the quality of the social

interaction within performance settings. Goffman’s (1959; 1974) social interactionism thus

provided the basis upon which a dynamic body image could be given a place in the midst of an

often very challenging socio-linguistic context.

The second research question considered whether the findings could serve the task of theory

building, with respect to psychological knowledge on the body image. Certainly the present study

has demonstrated a number of otherwise unobservable aspects of body image construction that

do contribute new material to our understanding of the phenomenon. For example, it has been

demonstrated that conceptual material plays a very important part in the capacity to find the body

and to develop an organizing point that gives primacy to the actual presence of the body, or what

participants referred to as an inside perspective. It has also been demonstrated that body image

construction is not only instituted by the activity of movement, but that the ontogenetic

relationship between movement and construction organizes and improves body awareness. The

kinesthetic perceptual system is thus an open potentiality. The present study has thereby

demonstrated that kinesthetic perception can be thought of as the foundation onto which the

physiological and psychological dimension of the body image is anchored. This anchoring
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provides a sense of bodilyness that, theoretically speaking, could have a direct relationship to

both psychological and physical recovery in treatment settings.

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CHAPTER EIGHT

IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS

This chapter presents the implications of the findings discussed in Chapter seven. The focus here

is on how the present findings contribute insights on the psychological understanding of the body

image. Firstly the implications pertaining to the heuristic value, or the explanatory power of,

Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory are discussed. This is followed by a discussion of the implications

of the findings with respect to the way they impact upon practices concerning body experience

and on the way they impact upon the research enterprise.

As a preliminary remark, it must be reiterated that the vast majority of knowledge production on

the body image conducted within the discipline of psychology has been borne of the structural-

functionalist paradigm. The implications described here are thus considered with respect to that

more predominant body of knowledge within the discipline of psychology.

8.1 The heuristic value of Schilder’s theory

The most sweeping implication stemming from the present study pertains to its support for

Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory as a coherent, versatile and, best of all, holistic explanation on the

relationship between self-perception, self-apperception and psychological wellbeing. The most

significant effect that this point of view brings to light is the opportunities it promotes to shift the

focus of psychological researches toward questions pertaining to the relationship between mind

and body. Such a shift would necessarily require a reassessment of the status of the constructed

body, first described by Freud (1950/1966), within the discipline of psychology. A wider

appreciation of the constructed body would, in turn, enable the opportunity for greater

interdisciplinary collaboration between neuroscience, psychoanalysis and psychology.

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Secondly, the present study has demonstrated also the capacity of Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory

to lay open the emergent nature of the body image. This emergent nature, characterized in the

present study by the focus upon movement, acknowledges the potentiality, indeterminacy and

plasticity of dynamic construction. It also offers conceptual material through which the process of

formation, or what Massumi (2000) called “a taking-form” (p. 9), might be imagined and

developed within the discipline of psychology. Dynamic construction thus brings to light the

incessant nature of construction and deconstruction of the body image across time.

In addition, the incessant activity of dynamic construction was underpinned by the

acknowledgement given to the actual presence of a moving body. The actual presence of the

body in Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory was denoted by his emphasis upon the role of synaesthetic

perception in dynamic activity. By contrast, Tiemersma (1989) noted that the discipline of

psychology had supplanted the actual presence of the body with a memory image that, he

argued, oftentimes has little to do with the reality of the body itself. The centrality given to

movement by Schilder (1935/1978) thus permitted a closer examination of dynamic construction.

His description of the anticipatory plan condensed the conceptualization of human movement into

units, or what he referred to as a gnostic image, that could be imagined spatially, temporally, as

well as visually. The gnostic image then became the psychological object through which the effort

to find the body could be understood. The image that might necessarily emerge from that

dynamic activity is thus subtended by holistic assumptions that posit constructive activity at an

intermediary point between synaesthetic perception and psychological life.

Yet another implication of the present study to a psychological understanding of the body image

pertains to the way Schilder’s (1935/1978) description of dynamic activity and a synaesthetically

constructed image, put into question structural-functional definitions of the body image. Those

definitions tend to characterize the notion of the ‘image’ in body image purely from the point of

view of visual perception and thus ignore the synaesthetic character of perception. The nature of

dynamic construction thus stands in stark contrast to both formal and operational definitions of

the concept, and to the synchronically organized constructs, like body dissatisfaction, that those
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definitions have generated. Not only is the contrast between the dynamic theory and structural-

functional research identifiable with respect to definitional parameters, but the dynamic theory

also required a methodological shift that asserted a broader understanding of the nature of

empirical research itself. Most notably, the application of the dynamic theory as an empirical

heuristic, or speculative metaphor, required that the present study adopt an approach of a

divergent order to the one generally conducted and promoted within the discipline of psychology.

That divergent approach placed theory in a central position with respect to the method and

thereby changed the point of view through which the psychological experience of the body image

might be understood. Methodological concerns are described more fully in Section 8.3.

Further, the holistic assumptions upon which the theory of dynamic construction is based put into

question the tendency within the discipline of psychology to overlook the theoretical role of the

unconscious in ordinary experience. Schilder’s (1935/1978) translation of aspects pertaining to

the Freudian life instinct and bodily ego into his description of the body image incorporated

assumptions about the unconscious. Through such assumptions, the present study was able to

identify and theoretically locate the nature of bodily experiences, such as holding patterns and

body story, in the context of a holistic idea. The present study thus asserts that the unconscious

has relevance to disciplines outside psychoanalysis, and especially to the psychological study of

the body image.

Additionally, the present study has demonstrated that Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory enabled the

research act, herein, to focus upon normal experience. It thus potentially implements a shift in the

character of the body image, as it is understood in the discipline of psychology. This shift has the

potential to transform the location of the body image from its place within the study of

psychological disorders, to that within the study of the acquisition of knowledge about the body,

and the role of apperception in normal psychological development. In so doing, the present study

has underlined the importance of conceptualizing unconscious processes, and the notion of

plasticity. Schilder’s theory has, thus, heightened the importance of interpreting the body image

as a form of knowledge acquisition.

 249

Moreover, the present study has shown that the subjective experience of kinesthetic perception

needs to be reevaluated within the discipline of psychology. The study of motor development,

according to De Oreo and Williams (1980), conceptualized the kinesthetic perceptual system as a

capacity underlying physical motility. Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory on the other hand, served to

advance the character of that physiological capacity into a very sophisticated, modality through

which the experience of body image construction can be observed. The present study

demonstrated that kinesthetic perception, of which proprioception is a part, is the primary medium

through which one’s own movement may be apprehended and thus, theoretically speaking, is the

material ground upon which the body schema becomes an image. However, the present study

does not aim to suggest that movement is the only domain through which to observe this

construction. The discipline of psychology could thus benefit from a reinterpretation of the place

of kinesthetic perception in psychological life, as an open potentiality.

Finally, the present study has shown that the structural-functional approach, predominating in

psychology, has largely overlooked the socio-linguistic, physiological and dynamic contexts in

which the apperception of the body image arises. Of note, they have been silent about the

importance of developmental challenges in the formation of the body image identified by Amann-

Gianotti et al. (1989), and neglected the sense of continuity or feeling of psychological anchoring

proffered by the actual body, and particularly proprioception, in normal experience (Metzinger,

2003). In light of the present study, the structural-functional paradigm has failed to consider the

acquisition of knowledge characteristic of the activity of the body image. This oversight has

masked opportunities to appreciate the diachronic, or temporally organized, context in which

disturbances of the body image arise.

8.2 Implications for professional practice

The implications of the present study for professional practice concerning assessment, diagnosis

or treatment of bodily related experience are considered with respect to the study of
 250

psychological disturbances in normal populations and to the role of movement therapies in

psychological treatment.

Firstly, the present study has shown that the emergent nature of the body image and its plasticity,

described first by Schilder (1935/1978), should be acknowledged more widely. This study thus

demonstrated that plasticity can be perceived subjectively and that changes across time, in

relation to the emergence of the body image, can be given greater salience in treatment and

training when combined with relevant conceptual material. Movement therapies, and movement

training in general, thus have the potential to instate an awareness of the plasticity of the body

image at the level of the body’s spatiality and psychological experience. The study by Wallin et al.

(2000) exemplified this as a transformation or normalization of experience by anorexic patients.

In the context of dynamic construction, this effect might also be interpreted as an intervention that

reintroduced patients to the emergent nature of the body image and its plasticity, through the

experience of their spatiality. The theory of dynamic construction thus might permit more to be

inferred about the psychological effects of movement, that includes the potential for it to usher in

an awareness of the plasticity of the body image at all levels of bodily experience.

Secondly, the dynamic and synaesthetically constructed body image not only puts into question

the predominance given to physical appearance and visual perception in the conceptual

development of the body image in psychology, but also puts into question the value of treatment

strategies, addressing body image disturbances, that ignore Schilder’s (1935/1978) tri-

dimensional idea. Schilder’s theory brought attention to the relationship between synaesthetic

perception, a physiological capacity in the activity of self-apperception, and to the reflective

intentionality involved in the formation of the image; that through which a sense of bodily

continuity is made possible in normal experience. It thus shifts the emphasis upon the nature of

symptoms, currently found in the psychological literature, to the nature of change in the treatment

of body image disturbances.

 251

In treatment settings, holistic concepts have been associated with transformations to body

awareness and extrapolated to benefits associated with both psychological and physical

conditions (Malmgren-Olsson, et al., 2001; Wallin, et al., 2000; Mattsson, et al., 1998 & 1997 and;

Friis, et al., 1989). The holistic assumptions within Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory suggest that a

clear conceptualization of the unconscious, could make for an important strategy in treatment

settings serving the transformation of experience associated with body image disturbances. The

concepts identified as holding patterns and body story allowed some participants in the present

study to adopt a holistic understanding of their experience, by conceptualizing an integrated

relationship between body and mind. Those concepts, it was inferred, permitted the construction

of the body image to be imagined across time, albeit unconsciously, and the effort of finding the

body to be connected with a qualitative shift in the experience of the body. The holistic structure

of Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory when combined with movement, has the potential to positively

influence the experience of bodily continuity (Federn, 1952), or what might be referred to as the

sense of bodilyness associated more directly with normal experience.

The present study has described how movement, applied as treatment or therapy, has the

potential to improve the psycho-physiological experience of the body image. This is made

possible, not simply because holistic ideas provide a psychologically compatible picture, but

additionally because those ideas enable social subjects to find, organize and construct their body

from all their veridical experience. The conceptual structure of Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory

provides an alternate perspective on the body, that is, it proffers a concept through which to

consider the constructed body. In this version, body and mind are considered to be of the same

stuff. It has thus underlined Schilder’s observations on the relationship between mind and body,

and extended the versatility attributed to the body image by authors such as Norris (1978), to

include experience often attributed to medical conditions. The present study has added to her

consideration of the role of the body image in nursing settings, the notion that the body and its

ailments can often be considered as constructions organized by the activity of the body image

across time. Thereby the present study implies that the versatility of this concept may extend to

the assessment, examination, diagnosis and treatment of physical conditions where the
 252

subjective experience of the body introduces complexity to the treatment and recovery of those

conditions.

It has been argued that structural-functional models pertaining to the body image have the

potential to delimit or exclude the experience of the actual presence of the body. Although bodily

appearance is phenotypically unique, often sculpted and evaluated according to one’s

assimilation of cultural norms, Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory has provided insight into how one

may construct an image of the body that takes into account synaesthetic experience. It, thus,

reintroduces the actual presence of the body back into the study of the body image, and

potentially into the common place language of social subjects (Rose, 1997), when recounting

their experience of the body image.

8.3 Implications for future research

The implications of the present study for future research deal firstly with the implications of the

present study for the way research in general is conducted within psychology. This is followed by

a consideration of the study of the body image in the discipline of psychology.

Firstly, the findings of the present study prompt the need for psychologists to learn how to review

the paradigmatic claims underlying the research act. Structural-functional research, for example,

is often conducted using formulaic systems of data collection and analysis that are unlikely to be

critically evaluated by researchers within the discipline. A critical analysis of the claims underlying

all psychological research could, however, reinvigorate the discipline. It might also provide

conceptual space for the wider application of naturalistic inquiry in the discipline or the wider

application of psychodynamic ideas.

Secondly, the present study has underlined the basis of the impatience expressed by Lennox and

Lennox (2002) with regard to the neurological and psychiatric study of movement disorders. Their

comment implied that interdisciplinary collaboration in that field is well overdue, and the present
 253

study has demonstrated that theoretical speculation may provide the means by which such

collaboration might take place. More specifically, the present findings imply also that Schilder’s

theory might play an important part as the speculative metaphor for such researches. This

speculative function was identified by Draaisma (2000) as that traditionally occupied by the

empirical heuristic. These comments also indicate the role that psychodynamic ideas, beyond the

work of Schilder, might have in the development of knowledge on the relationship between

human movement and human psychology.

The present study has thus demonstrated that Schilder’s (1935/1978) theory contains an

empirical versatility in its capacity to reanimate what Lincoln and Guba (1985) identified as the

context of discovery or generate what has been identified as theory building. As a platform for

observation, Schilder’s theory provided a framework and rationale for considering the role of

human consciousness, or the mind, in shaping body experiences associated with the body

image. Gallagher and Meltzoff (1996) described the relationship between body schema and body

image and the enduring neurological connections underlying that relationship. The findings of the

present study, however, have enlarged the way that relationship may be understood, and

generated the opportunity for neuroscientific knowledge pertaining to the body image to be taken

up more directly in psychological research. Neuroscientific ideas on the body image, that assume

a plastic and dynamic brain, have largely been overlooked in the psychological literature.

Another implication of the present study for psychological research addresses more specifically

the role of the measurement techniques used on the study of the body image. It was noted that

Shipton (1999), Ogden and Evans (1996), and Tiemersma (1989) each considered that the

quantitative measures used in body image research have the potential to act as self-objectifying,

judgmental and controlling devices, rather than value-neutral materials. Given the findings of the

present study, this observation can be further elaborated with respect to constructive activity. By

demonstrating the importance of conceptual material in the construction of the body image, the

present study has put into context the effect that such scales may have in creating a self-

objectifying or judgmental experience. The present study has thus underlined the importance of
 254

holistic concepts in body image construction and adds to the observations by Shipton, Ogden

and Evans, and Tiemersma that such techniques may undermine the construction of the body

image, because they overlook the actual presence of the body.

From the point of view of dynamic construction, an “internal representation of your own outer
1
appearance” (Thompson, et al., 1999, p. 4) represents, simply, the capacity for autoscopy . It

thus ignores the plastic and generative character of construction, and the sense of bodily

continuity and physical coherence underlying bodily self-love. It also falsely suggests that

autoscopy underlies the organization of the body image, rather than synaesthetic perception.

Tiemersma (1989) noted that this misinterpretation has produced a construct that refers only to a

memory image of the body. As an error, this misinterpretation has substantial repercussions and
2
demonstrates how enduring a fallacy can be. This is not to suggest that the relative intensity of

affect experienced with respect to the appearance of one’s body is not salient, but that it falls way

short of capturing the psychological image of the body. This fallacy needs to be addressed if

body image research is to have a viable future.

As a final remark, it can be asserted that the findings discussed here complement other critical

researches on the body image, like that presented by Malson (1998) who highlighted the

importance of the socio-linguistic context in the formation of body image disturbances and

subjectivity in general. Its complementarity is evident in the salience it brings to the contexts in

which the body image develops. Most directly, it highlights the potentiality of the body image as

circumscribed by the theory of dynamic construction which, based upon synaesthetic perception,

is a psychological medium through which we acquire knowledge about ourselves as psycho-

physiological beings.

1
Schilder’s (1935/1978) description of autoscopy was presented in Section 2.4.1.2 above.
2
The Psychologist’s fallacy, according to James (1890/1952), was presented in Section 1.5.4.1
above.
 255

8.4 Building theory

In many respects, this study has brought into question what the discipline of psychology has

overlooked most about the process of self-apperception. It brings to light the self-referential

perceptual systems associated with body image construction, which have been disavowed by the

discipline of psychology, that include the perception of movement (Schilder, 1935/1978) and

touch (Anzieu, 1989). It thereby suggests that the methods preferred within the discipline of

psychology, that have focused purely upon the study of visual perception and emotional

responses associated with the perception of one’s bodily appearance, have become popular

largely through conceptual blind-sightedness. While the present study identified that cultural

images and marketing messages strongly influenced the way participants evaluated their

appearance, it was also shown that individuals have the capacity to organize their body image

from another perspective, from an inside perspective. This perspective was made available

through Schilder’s theory.

Underlying Schilder’s (1935/1978) framework was the dual-aspect monist ontology. Schilder’s

position on the existence of the body image, thus acknowledged the physical body as a material

entity with anatomical and neurological limits, but it also acknowledged that the body we each

come to know as our own, is first and foremost a constructed one and thus a psychological

image, much like a phantom. That phantom, image, or to quote Schilder (1935/1978, p. 11)

directly, “the picture of our own body which we form in our mind”, is tri-dimensional. The findings

of the present study add to this the notion that the body image can now also be thought of as

having two sides. One side, the inside, is a construction that takes account of the actual presence

of the body, and resembles what Sheets-Johnstone (2002, p. 44) referred to as “the

kinetic/tactile-kinesthetic/affective body”. The outside, or objectified side, includes the

psychological construction each individual makes of the meanings assigned to his or her sexed

body across their lifetime.

The inside and outside experiences of the body image are intertwined by way of dynamic

construction. Dynamic construction organizes the way each individual acquires knowledge about
 256

his or her body image, and as mental activity it is largely unconscious. Improving one’s conscious

attention of body image construction, and of one’s body image in general is nevertheless

possible, and training in procedural movement provides one means by which that may occur,

although the quality of that training is pertinent. The kinesthetic perceptual system is an important

experience in the subjective perception of dynamic construction and the body image. It also plays

an important part in establishing the anchor upon which the body image is constructed. In other

words, kinesthetic perception serves to verify the actual presence of the body, and thus to

establish the body image.

8.5 Concluding remarks

Dynamic construction is the heart of the body image. According to Schilder (1935/1978), it

pertains to the conceptual organization of our synaesthetic perception, and the activity of

construction lies at the threshold of conscious awareness. Schilder’s theory is thus a very

versatile platform through which to understand the psychological role of the body image in normal

psychological development, the nature and organization of body image disturbances, and the

intrapsychic effort associated with the subjective experience of bodily continuity over time.

Schilder’s theory describes a far more manifold experience than that identified by the more

widespread, structural-functional model used in psychology, not simply because it is dynamic, but

primarily because it re-establishes the presence of the actual body and its motility into the

conceptualization of the body image in normal experience.

 257

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APPENDICES
 269

APPENDIX I

RECRUITMENT SCRIPT

During the contact call with each participant, each person was introduced to the study and

advised that their participation would require a tape-recorded interview up to one-and-a-half

hours duration and the completion of a short questionnaire.

* * *

My name is…..

I received your contact number from “ [name] “ who thought you might be interested in taking part

in my research project. Has she mentioned the interview with you?

[Cold calling begins here]

I am a student at Ph.D. in psychology at Victoria University and am contacting women who

perform one of three styles of movement. Might [someone at your centre] or [you] be interested if

I explained a bit about the project?

I am contacting women who perform “ [insert here] ” (e.g. Contemporary dance, Middle-eastern

dance or Aerobics) and am interested in exploring the experience of the body image. [Questions

and qualifications required by the respondent…..]

I am conducting interviews of approximately 60-90 minutes, which will be tape-recorded. Do you

think you might be interested in taking part?

 270

APPENDIX II

THE MBSRQ

INSTRUCTIONS-PLEASE READ CAREFULLY

The following pages contain a series of statements about how

people might think, f eel, or behave. You are asked to indicate
the extent to which each statement pertains to you personally.

Your answers to the items in the questionnaire are anonymous, so

please do not write your name on any of the materials. In order
to complete the questionnaire, read, each statement carefully and
decide how much it pertains to you personally. Using a scale like
the one below, indicate your answer by entering it to the left of
the number of the statement.

1 2 3 4 5
-----------------------------------------------------------
Definitely Mostly Neither Mostly Definitely
Disagree Disagree Agree Nor Agree Agree
Disagree

EXAMPLE:

______ I am usually in a good mood.

In the blank space, enter a 1 if you definitely disagree with

the statement; a 2 if you mostly disagree; a 3 if you neither
agree nor disagree; a 4 if you mostly agree; or enter a 5 if you
definitely agree with the statement.

There are no right or wrong answers- Just give the answer that is
most accurate for you. Remember, your responses are anonymous, so
please be completely honest and answer all items.

(The duplication and use of the MBSRQ permitted by

Thomas F. Cash, Ph.D., Department of Psychology,
Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA 23529)
 271

APPENDIX II

1 2 3 4 5
-----------------------------------------------------------
Definitely Mostly Neither Mostly Definitely
Disagree Disagree Agree Nor Agree Agree
Disagree

______ 1. Before going out in public, I always notice

how I look.

______ 2. I am careful to buy clothes that will make me

look my best.

______ 3. 1 would pass most physical-fitness tests.

______ 4. It is important that I have superior physical

strength.

______ 5. My body is sexually appealing.

______ 6. I am not involved in a regular exercise program.

______ 7. 1 am in control of my health.

______ 8. 1 know a lot about things that affect my physical

health.

______ 9. 1 have deliberately developed a healthy

life-style.

______ 10. 1 constantly worry about being or becoming fat.

______ 11. 1 like my looks just the way they are.

______ 12. I check my appearance in a mirror whenever I can.

______ 13. Before going out, I usually spend a lot of time

getting ready.

______ 14. My physical endurance is good.

______ 15. Participating in sports is unimportant to me.

______ 16. 1 do not actively do things to keep physically

fit.

______ 17. My health is a matter of unexpected ups and

downs.

______ 18. Good health is one of the most important things

in my life.

______ 19. 1 don't do anything that I know might threaten

my health.

______ 20. 1 am very conscious of even small change's in my

weight.
 272

APPENDIX II

1 2 3 4 5
-----------------------------------------------------------
Definitely Mostly Neither Mostly Definitely
Disagree Disagree Agree Nor Agree Agree
Disagree

______ 21. Most people would consider me good-looking.

______ 22. It is important that I always look good.

______ 23. 1 use very few grooming products.

______ 24. 1 easily learn physical skills.

______ 25. Being physically fit is not a strong priority

in my life.

______ 26. I do things to increase my physical strength.

______ 27. 1 am seldom physically ill.

______ 28. 1 take my health for granted.

______ 29. 1 often read books and magazines that pertain

to health.

______ 30. 1 like the way I look without my clothes on.

______ 31. I am self-conscious if my grooming isn't right.

______ 32. 1 usually wear whatever is handy without caring

how it looks.

______ 33. 1 do poorly in physical sports or games.

______ 34. 1 seldom think about my athletic skills.

______ 35. 1 work to improve my physical stamina.

______ 36. From day to day, I never know how my body

will feel.

______ 37. If I am sick, I don't pay much attention to my

symptoms.

______ 38. 1 make no special effort to eat a balanced and

nutritious diet.

______ 39. 1 like the way my clothes fit me.

______ 40. 1 don't care what people think about my

appearance.
 273

APPENDIX II

1 2 3 4 5
-----------------------------------------------------------
Definitely Mostly Neither Mostly Definitely
Disagree Disagree Agree Nor Agree Agree
Disagree

______ 41. I take special care with my hair grooming.

______ 42. I dislike my physique.

______ 43. I don't care to improve my abilities in physical

activities.

______ 44. 1 try to be physically active.

______ 45. 1 often feel vulnerable to sickness.

______ 46. 1 pay close attention to my body for any signs of

illness.

______ 47. If I 'm coming down with a cold or flu, I just

ignore it and go on as usual.

______ 48. 1 am physically unattractive.

______ 49. 1 never think about my appearance.

______ 50. 1 am always trying to improve my physical

appearance.

______ 51. 1 am very well co-ordinated.

______ 52. 1 know a lot about physical fitness.

______ 53. 1 play a sport regularly throughout the year.

______ 54. I am a physically healthy person.

______ 55. 1 am very aware of small changes in my physical

health.

______ 56. At the first sign of illness, 1 seek medical

advice.

______ 57. 1 am on a weight-loss diet.

For the remainder of the items use the response scale given with
the Item, and enter your answer in the space beside the item.
(continued on the next page)
 274

APPENDIX II

______ 58. 1 have tried to lose weight by fasting or

going on crash diets.

1. Never
2. Rarely
3. Sometimes
4. Often
5. Very Often

______ 59. 1 think I am:

1. Very Underweight
2. Somewhat Underweight
3. Normal Weight
4. Somewhat Overweight
5. Very Overweight

______ 60. From looking at me, most other people

would think I am:

1. Very Underweight
2. Somewhat Underweight
3. Normal Weight
4. Somewhat Overweight
5. Very Overweight

61-69. Use this 1 to 5 scale to indicate how satisfied you are

with each of the following areas or aspects of your body:

1 2 3 4 5
--------------------------------------------------------------
Very Mostly Neither Mostly Very
Dissatisfied Dissatisfied Satisfied Satisfied Satisfied
Nor
Dissatisfied

______ 61. Face (facial features, complexion)

______ 62. Hair (color, thickness, texture)

______ 63. Lower torso (buttocks, hips, thighs, legs)

______ 64. Mid torso (waist, stomach)

______ 65. Upper torso (chest or breasts, shoulders, arms)

______ 66. Muscle tone

______ 67. Weight

______ 68. Height

______ 69. Overall appearance

 275

APPENDIX III: SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEW PROTOCOL

MOVEMENT:

• Describe your movement style?

• Describe any preparation or study required by a person to perform your movement?

- perhaps in terms of your development in movement, physical conditioning, skills,
and practice methods.
- the most rudimentary requirements.

• From where do you derive the methods for the design of performances?

• Please explain the kind of information that your movement can convey to you about
yourself ?
- what does it offer you that everyday life cannot?
- what does the movement allow you to know or explore, which would be unavailable to
you in other modes of experience?

• If your technique puts into action a special bodily experience, what might it be?

• Consider any other movement style and how it might contrast greatest?
- perhaps in terms of your aims and expectations of the movement and performances
in general?

• Describe for me how a body trained in your movement is different from an untrained
body - how you are enabled?
- how it differs from other enabled bodies?

• To what extent does the movement decide for you the kind of body you have?

• Why did you decide to take it to a professional level?

PERFORMANCE /SETTINGS:

• Please give me a description of how performance space needs to be structured?

- the size of the space;
- the level of ceremony required for the space (e.g. punctuality or formality);
- furniture necessary;
- the distances or area needed by you to perform.

• How might different settings, change the nature of performances?

• Describe the kinds of settings you perform in? Include not just the physical features but
try to describe for me how the “ambiance” you require to perform gets established?
 276

APPENDIX III: SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEW PROTOCOL

• Describe for me how you prepare for a performance?

- physical
- psychological

• What characteristics might you expect in your most fully developed performance?
- what takes it beyond mere locomotion, simultaneous imitation, or pace setting?

• What kind of ‘object’ do you offer your audiences? How does it differ from interactions
in everyday life?

• Can you give an example of audience behavior that cannot sustain your performances?
- why?

• Is there another kind of skill or activity (anything) that might bring about the same kinds
of personal rewards. Name the main features that are similar.

• Do you ever stop to think how you ‘seem’ to the audience while you are performing.

• How is expression conveyed to the audience e.g. visually, auditorially, rhythmically,

kinesthetically, interpersonally, abstractly etc.

• To what extent do you think that the body you bring, shapes the audiences’ responses
to what you do?

• To what extent do you think that expectations of women’s bodily ideal impact on
audiences responses to your performances, and why?

• Describe for me any personal transition you’ve recognized as a result of performing?

- in terms of how you perceive yourself in the world.
- in relation to social expectations of women’s bodily ideal.

• What possibilities emerge for you as a result of the movement and performance?
 277

APPENDIX IV: Consent Form

Victoria University of Technology

Consent Form

INFORMATION TO PARTICIPANTS:

We would like to invite you to be a part of a study exploring the relationship between
body image and context. This project is aimed at women involved in movement and
performance and sets out to explore the impact that movement and performing bring to
body image in everyday life.

CERTIFICATION BY SUBJECT

I,

of

certify that I am at least 17 years old* and that I am voluntarily giving my consent to
participate in the project entitled: “The dynamic body image and the moving body: A
theoretical and empirical exploration”, being conducted at Victoria University of
Technology by:

Francine Hanley (researcher),

Professor Susan Moore (principal supervisor)
Anne Graham (co-supervisor)

I certify that the objectives of the experiment, together with any risks to me associated
with the procedures listed hereunder to be carried out in the experiment, have been fully
explained to me by Francine Hanley and that I freely consent to participation involving
the use on me of these procedures.

Procedures: This project involves an interview and the completion of a brief

questionnaire on body image. The interview will be guided by a flexible range of topics.
The personal stories given during interviews will form the basis of the research. The
interviews will be tape-recorded, but all participants will be given pseudonyms so that
your identity will always remain anonymous.

I certify that I have had the opportunity to have any questions answered and that I
understand that I can withdraw from this experiment at any time and that this withdrawal
will not jeopardize me in any way.

I have been informed that the information I provide will be kept confidential.

Signed: .................................................

---------------------------------------------Detach here--------------------------------------------------------

Any queries about your participation in this project may be directed to the researcher,
Francine Hanley on 0425 794 428. If you have any queries or complaints about the way
you have been treated, you may contact the Secretary, University Human Research
Ethics Committee, Victoria University of Technology, PO Box 14428 MCMC, Melbourne,
8001 (telephone no: 03-9688 4710).
 278
APPENDIX V: Part A Contemporary dancers

Therese Stella Thyra Ursula Fran

Performance Bad habit patterns in Become more awake; The body has its Breaking habitual
makes it the body; All of a Holding patterns… reasons; Body is cycles. But I wouldn’t
Unconscious manifest sudden something is muscular holding representative of say that it’s a
triggered and people patterns and emotional unconscious; deliberate practise…I
cry in class; I think impulses; Body Something is being think I’ve arrived at
dance puts me in story…history in the held that
touch with stuff musculature of the body

Improvisation is So you’re building There are places I’ve Dance is a way of Very sensory
experiments in and constantly been to that you haven’t processing life; When practice…tricking
movement restructuring because no-one’s given I go back to the studio perception…becomin
movement patterns so you permission or set I have a clean canvas; g responsive to your
you don’t get into a that intention for you; Improvisation cf. the body really – to an
habit Dance allows for an teacher having all the internal form and
Active process

exploration; ideas; Explore the defining it as you go;

Performance is research origin of a movement Joining vocabularies
as coming from a and integrating them
unique anatomical
system in the body

More finely You have to be Visualization is used to Moving from an Thought stimulates
calibrated intellectually aware to address holding patterns internal image or movement. The way
attention do dance ; Building and to release them. To impulse… Finding a you’re perceiving
neurological pathways access them.; place within oneself stimulates
Awareness of the that really wants to movement.;
energetic flows through move; I’ve been Need to think about
the body; My intention thinking into different the body in a different
is to awaken the parts of my body; I way…just to think
Body must be found

experience of my body; imagine the about the body is

Someone has to shine a movement; I have necessary;
light down a path before drawn and traced Allows me to explore
you’ll walk it. every joint and my perception and
muscle…the picture how I understand
has been elaborated; myself perceiving the
The body has to be world
researched
Anticipatory plan

Building blocks Folkloric Spent a lot of time re- Classical ballet Movement
of learning Classical ballet educating my body after Character dance vocabularies = Modes
movement; Spanish flamenco classical ballet training; Tai chi of perceiving
Traces to more Indian dance Tai chi; My movement gives
generations African dance Fluidity, speed, me the ability to
precision physicalize anything

Physical world I think people start to Over time I’ve had To change the way Different modes of
modified thru die spiritually when different bodies.; The people balance their perceiving produce a
coming into they get stuck, when body is not a fixed body is to change different headspace;
contact with the they don’t develop entity; I present a their body image Mind is the body
Plasticity

physical world anymore; changing body

of others Reprogramming the
body constantly

When my body Oh God![face in Dance very pleasurable; It was really Movement relaxes me
was a little more hands] Confidence through the distressing for me to
to my liking I’m constantly ability, through feeling put on weight and I Affects how I feel
unhappy with the way graceful, through know I’m not over about my body in the
I look knowing that I am weight now, but going world enormously
Reflective emotion

physically adept to eight stone was just

horrifying
 279
APPENDIX V: Part A Contemporary dancers

Therese Stella Thyra Ursula Fran

Improvisation Ballet is a perfection Softness; releasing of Anatomy based Improvise

you never meet; tension and weight; the movement (Internal Movements are very
Movement vocabulary use of gravity; contact image); Certain connected to thought
= a different energy improvisation; deep movement styles go My techniques is a
and a different part of releasing technique for best with certain synthesis of several
the body the holding patterns body-types and skills vocabularies
Technique

The way you do Sacred space; I like to I’m very, very Safety things in place; The aesthetic affects
something; not see them (the interested in working Defined by the people’s perception of
Framing the setting

Context creates audience) with music; proximity to the what they are seeing;
meaning of Performance as research audience Framing the
movement performance so that
the audience can
absorb it more
profoundly

Understanding The most intimate Here in the present To be in touch with The practice I do
The organizing point

where you relationship we have moment in a very yourself now…just to think

through an with world is through grounded and awake Being in balance e.g. about the body is
experiential the body and not here and now….as an you never teach the necessary; responsive
thing being in touch with integrated mind-body drug addicted to “go to your body really; to
the body is like a form experience up” they lose the an internal form;
of spiritual castration plot…depressed defining it as you go;
people need to go up

Women’s ideal Tragedy that mothers Beach muscles ; Ballet very brutal; I [pressure of social
Impact of the social

in dance is send their daughters Performance as research had a mind-set that I ideal?] A lot; Striving
expected to be to ballet…child is freedom from the didn’t like the to achieve a body
young; Fetish bearing hips…No very fraught anorexic mentality [in type; ballet form is so
way that child with relationship to the classical ballet], but specific and
huge size 16 hips can audience you were still a competition is rife
ideal

continue to do ballet product of it through the whole

system

Elusive pleasure I like to lose myself in I offer myself as a In the end it’s about Flipping; shifting
of showing off the movement …No vehicle [to the the transitional space loosing the handle;
longer being an audience]for a shift in between the desire to undoing
Transcendent effect of

individual, but being a consciousness express something

process; and the expression of
Extraordinary it. That’s what’s
transcendence through fascinating about
performance

movement; something performance; Feeling

that most humans whole and in
never access connection with the
audience

Needing to bolt I’ll drop dead the day Soul being fed Need to move = You
Impulse/ need

me down I stop dancing; All I feel you’d die,

ever wanted to do is suffocate, drown, you
to move

dance are being closed-in

Need for Different vocabularies Energy; weight; flow Anatomical imagery My mind dropped into
symmetry; access different my body; Alexander
Abstract
concepts

The trace centres in the body; I technique,

think they make you Idio-kinesis
whole
 280
APPENDIX V: Part A Contemporary dancers

Therese Stella Thyra Ursula Fran

Thinking A full sense of being present in You can’t afford to loose Listening to Level of
Movement-thought through the world totally whole from the your body consciousness; the body mindfulness;
movement to toes up; “Oh I wobbled”; Mindful
rehearse Reprogramming the body That is something you performance;
relationship

constantly. It keeps it alert…a fight against in The mind is the

re-tuning and fine tuning and performance body
reprogramming all the time
 281
APPENDIX V: Part B Middle-eastern dancers

Faith Eileen Noni Tina Fiona

Alexander technique It brings all this Ways of holding and

unblocks things; I still stuff up. It wakes using my body; A
Unconscious don’t feel like I’ve something up; need to release
completely unraveled; unleashed out onto learned habits;
In certain positions the world; Blockages
we’ve learned to It gets all knotted up
protect ourselves from and stressed
our emotions

Improvisation = dance Letting go; patience It’s like painting I tell students you It’s entirely about
from my own feeling; to go deep into the need a body and a interpreting the
a physical unraveling; process; releasing; sense of adventure; music and opening
Drawing on You have to keep letting go and yourself to the
technique, but letting tapping into it, but it allowing oneself to music and
it come out from me becomes more and explore and do things expressing that
more part of you, you’ve never done music; I feel it forces
but you have to before you to work with
keep going back to your body rather
it than against; I feel
more and more in
Active process

awe of how this

body can be me,
what the relationship
of the mind to the
body is;

I’m finding and Keep finding this The more I learn the Body has to be It’s like developing
discovering more and place; working more I’m filling out kinesthetically aware awareness further
more; using those through [physical part of a puzzle; of how to create that and further and finer
movements to explore knots]; you have to flowing response ; So and finer. So that I
Body must be found

myself keep reminding Starting to become that’s about muscular can make my
yourself more aware of the development and dancing
body and enjoying awareness; using parts Exploration of who I
moving in my body; of the body you never am; Being really
The way a kid knew existed. conscious in your
enjoys being sung body
on a swing

Groundedness, Woman carrying a Like drawing Not having an Raqsharqi;

gravity; movement pot on her head; arabesques along appropriate movement Earthed, An internal
that’s good for you Working through the ground and in vocabulary was very form, emotionally
centre; a spiral; the air frustrating; I used to expressive,
working with your get very upset that I grounded, energetic,
spine lengthening it Upper body couldn’t do it radiating, fluid,
movements from [respond to the music fiery, sharp, liquid,
Persia to China, a through dance]; textural
Anticipatory plans

lot of stuff is also It would swell up and

like Flamenco then stop and I
wanted to break
through and
experience that beauty
on the body level.

I’d allow myself to I became a snake [in performance] When I get a chance In the technique I
get really big and Stretching out to the to move it can be with the
extend ends of the world, feels…blossoms and music; It’s like the
Change the habits in Like your rays are opens up and it’s like alchemy of the
your body and you going out to all the if I expand my spirit music and your
change you emotional people feels better; Part of personality and then
habits the persona I’m it comes out[through
Plasticity

developing is more the dance]

the Grand Opera kind
of thing
 282
APPENDIX V: Part B Middle-eastern dancers

Faith Eileen Noni Tina Fiona

Three kinds Raqsharqi teaches Flow through the Learning the language Purely an Egyptian
according to the the body to be whole body; flow is of movement; form
quality of the aligned; spiraling really important; lightness; joy; an Working with weight
performance energy; a way I’ve picked up a lot interpretive quality gravity, momentum
women get in touch of different To work and release;
Learning movement with themselves movement from Becoming more fully
from the outside cf. different cultures. myself again
Technique

letting go; releasing; Like a smorgasbord.

alignment

I used to hate my Movement is very I really enjoy the Sometimes I’m not More and more in awe;
belly [but ] I could ecstatic; where your physical sensation feeling very Being at ease and
love myself through body just clicks into of the dance; I get a well…and I think I feeling happy and well
these movements this beautiful ‘pot great deal of won’t be able to in the body
on the head’ feeling pleasure from just enthuse the students
quite amazing flowing around; I …and by the end of
gives me a feeling class I’m having
of being a real ball…We prance
person, confidence around saying things
and a feeling of my like “Well I’ve got
place in the world nothing to do all day
but be gorgeous”
Reflective emotion

…everyone smiles
and looks satisfied ; I
used to be quite self
conscious of my hips
but now I’m not
because I can use my
hips

Performance Lately I feel I don’t The audience would I believe the role of It’s like you’re the key
persona care about [negative have to want to see the belly dancer is to to the music; I hope to
response from the] you perform; to assist people to enjoy inspire people and you
Middle-eastern audience and that I learn to perform you themselves; The can start them off
costume; .feel can handle anybody sort of have to performance persona
different about the psychoanalyze has to be there; “Isn’t
Framing the setting

body when I yourself to find out it your lucky day you

perform cf. in “what do I want to can see me dance”;
Western clothes say” It’s not something that
can happen without a
real or imagined
audience
 283
APPENDIX V: Part B Middle-eastern dancers

Faith Eileen Noni Tina Fiona

What I’m interested Body follows the Flow is really Dance: “This is mine” Your not taking on a
in now is the feeling feet; it’s always a important; like it’s No-one else has given persona; It’s very
of integration and dialogue to keep really useful for it to me and no-one much about working
wholeness going there to find people’s health, can take it away from with the body and
that place; This rather than jerking me either; Even if I being in the body;
dance comes from your way through had my arms and legs A strong sense of my
woman carrying a life; You start to get chopped off I would own physicality cf I
pot on her head; body knowledge; still be able to dance; think a lot of people
That’s where it is the feeling of being It’s like I’m carrying ignore their
for me a real person extra space around; bodies…like they
[allows me to] move don’t really inhabit
The organizing point

freely and easily them;

through the world The more you can
release learned habits,
the better a Raqsharqi
dancer you’ll be; A
fully released body =
more fully myself
again

3 kinds of perf. Cheap act to bring Most Arabic men Western audiences are Legs are covered in
contexts; Restaurant people to the can do it (belly the most difficult to Raqsharqi because it’s
patrons seeing the restaurant dance) If they are perform to because not attractive to see
dance as a sexy strip I love to dance for too good they’re they don’t know if what the legs are
thing cf. other Arab audiences seen as homosexual they’re allowed to doing; ; I find it
contexts because they and if women are look or how to strange that women
understand what too good at it respond want to wear the two
When I’m in my I’m doing they’re seen as piece costume and
Western clothes; That’s why big prostitutes; I have then expect people to
everyday persona people come – no- blue veins in my take them seriously
I’m paranoid; one’s going to laugh legs so my I don’t do restaurant
Impact of the social ideal

opportunities to work; I don’t want to

perform are limited compete with people’s
kebabs;
Maybe the colour of
my skin and my
features give some
authenticity to it as
well
 284
APPENDIX V: Part B Middle-eastern dancers

Faith Eileen Noni Tina Fiona

Accessing bigger I’m like this The movements Linking up and Because it’s entirely
parts of myself; Moroccan gypsy. feels like grain becoming one with about interpreting the
when I’m no longer I just get right into it shaking on stems the music;; My body music and opening
moving myself and when the wind singing the song; yourself, it’s like the
the feeling carries flutters; The The audience alchemy of the music
me away; It’s like performance forgetting themselves; and your personality
I’m having an persona is an There has to be a one- and then it comes out;
ecstatic experience intensification of ness and unity before There’s electricity in
parts of you; it’s anything else the room when it’s
Transcendence

almost religious; the happens; really going well that

energy is alive; it everyone can feel
feels like you’re
stretching out to the
ends of the world

I needed dance as a I feel that that music

kid. I forced my almost physically
The impulse /need to

mother to take me moves me; It comes

to dance classes; into my body and
I’ve just got a drive makes my body
to do it move. So it’s about
getting the music into
the body and getting
move

that relationship
happening

Earth Imaginary axis – pot Arabesques; flow; Alexander technique

Grounding on the head beauty; rhythm
Abstract
concepts

Root Chakra

When I think about Work through true Pure physicality;

my body through alignment; Being really in your
movement…throug Work with the feet; body and being really
h that way cf. out Need to find that conscious; That’s what
Movement-thought

there place; I get that I don’t get at

Have to keep any other time; Being
reminding yourself really present to that
relationship

and keep going particular instant and

there what you’re doing at
that instant
 285
APPENDIX V: Part C Aerobics instructors

Viv Sara Eloise Sandra Stephanie

Unconscious
process
Active

I’m very Movement that suits

Body must be found

uncoordinated… my own body.

unsteady moods. I I have the picture of
think you get a little the form (symmetry
out of touch with and neatness) and the
your body as you feeling in the body
get older (body comfort/
kinesthetic comfort)

Today all I practised [Design routines] that Exercise to music Exercises to music Need to be able to
Anticipatory plans

was in my head. I people actually have develop a flow of

can actually practise to think about. So for movement. If it’s not
routines by thinking me aerobics isn’t just flowing for you it’s not
about them movement, there’s going to carry on to
also thinking about it them
and being challenged
.
Plasticity

I don’t feel I look Doing something I’m I would really suffer I can’t think of The feel good thing... I
too differently really good at… so a lot without anything I would think it’s a creative
really. I know that a obviously it’s a great [aerobics] because I enjoy as much as thing.
few side handles thing to feed my self- find it’s really me.. doing aerobics If an idea comes and it
have gone, but I still esteem I’m really, really works, you feel quite
think that the If I’m moving, I know happy when I’m up good about it and feel
overall wellbeing is I’m better at other there. And I like excited being able to
more important and things… I’m better in being with women pass that on to clients
has the greatest my relationships, I also. and having them get
change. It’s that feel better about my I can get into a rut the same sort of buzz
wellbeing, for some own body, I’m more and it’s not a from a combination of
reason that makes accepting of other healthy rut four movements that
me more accepting people. All those flow really well
of my body things I know come together
Reflective emotion

from moving.

There’s nothing better

than coming up with a
routine and in an hour
relaying that… it’s
your creation
 286
APPENDIX V: Part C Aerobics instructors

Viv Sara Eloise Sandra Stephanie

Power and It’s intense, whether Challenging, it looks The music and the Neatness, efficiency
strength... Because it’s low or high good, everything on the participation is of movement, strong
I’m uncoordinated impact. It’s always beat. Strengthening the supposed to simple lines,
I’m glad that intense for me. I like full body. I always distract their motivating, feels
[aerobics] is not too to be precise. I like to make sure that my attention away good. Flow =
dancy. I know I’ve be strong. It has to be form’s up to scratch. from the effort building up, rather
got the strength in motivating. The Like not dropping than a shift from one
me and I’m very movements have to be arms… My movements complex move to
strong and motivating… I can have got to be stronger another.
Technique

powerful. I can use my music and than anyone else’s in

make strong moves. create climaxes. the class.
Aerobics isn’t just
aerobics to me

When you do any I’m actually getting Music is the main thing. I’m a role model, Neat package, easy
pelvic exercise I people physically Music creates the mod, but I’m one of to remember,
find they get involved in it… I creates the beat. How them still punctuality, rapport.
embarrassed. So I have to be strong, I’m hard you want to work, That they enjoy To give them an
even have to look a role model, and I’m creates everything. what they’re emotional
out for that. I‘ve got performing. I’m Some of the best doing. experience and not
to make them feel moving [performing] instructors… good All body types just a physical one.
Framing the setting

comfortable. It’s to motivate people to teaching skills. can be fit.

very important how move. I like to see the class as
I start the class and an hour away from
with some groups I everything else… Like
have to be a bit a little holiday
more dominating

Normally don’t care I like to look good cos With the confidence It’s a state of I have two things
at all. I feel I know that’s going to thing, it’s almost like mind,. overlapping. There’s
confident but I’m make me feel good… I’ve put a shell on A take on the the picture of the
not thinking about You can’t do one myself.. world attitude. form and there’s the
‘how I look’. I thing to the physical I battle in my head feeling in the body
really don’t like that and not expect the about my weight. I’m
to happen. It’s mental to be affected. healthy and I’m fit and My body is my asset.
important to feel I’ve got family that’s the main thing
good in yourself, to members that are like
feel strong, that you they are because they
can cope with life. I don’t do anything. I
was more caught up know that if they
with the way I would go for a walk
The organizing point

looked before I got in a nice park… that

fitter and healthier. would make a really
big difference. That’s
how simple it is,
that’s how simple
movement is.... She
needs to find some
kind of inner balance
 287
APPENDIX V: Part C Aerobics instructors

Viv Sara Eloise Sandra Stephanie

The media ruins a When you do your And there’s a bit of Possibly the fitter If your classes are
lot. personal training, pressure from clients… one’s would look dropping you have to
When I started I don’t wear any tops Like you get people upon me as think about how you
thought I had to cos if people see what saying “I’ve never met someone who do appear
look like a trim taut you look like it’s an instructor that’s over doesn’t have There are
Impact of the social ideal

terrific instructor. inspiring… How you size 10” and I can’t what’s needed expectations for
Now if I see I have look is a factor in believe they say that to… you know. really attractive
larger ladies I keep what we do here, and you think is that I consider myself women in this
my T-shirt on. because we’re a role putting pressure on me? carrying too much industry…
[Fitter classes] if I model. Well I do … There’s weight to be the Blow me down if
didn’t look the part always that battle there image of a good their classes aren’t
I probably wouldn’t aerobics instructor packed
have them coming
in

When have one of I could be dying and It’s like my escape, my Buzz = it just I love to have a
my good days and would be able to get little passion. If things means that routine where
get a really good up and do it I think, aren’t going right I’ve everybody is everybody’s able to
flow in… you can because it just does got my little escape. My really enjoying do it and
get a bit of a high something… It own little stage. themselves and everybody’s working
… and it does feel doesn’t matter how it’s all fitting together and you get
Transcendence

very good and I shitty I am, how together this group energy.
have noticed days pissed off, how sad I It feels good and you
where I don’t do as am… as soon as that feel creative.
much I don’t get play button goes
that down the whole world
just changes
Impulse / need

I just want to do my
movement. That’s all
I ever wanted.
to move

I really feel there’s You do something Heart rate Heart rate Efficiency of
Abstract models

got to be a balance, with your body and Movement movement,

for the body

that’s why I feel so you start to learn physiology symmetry of

strongly about about it. movement, body
working the upper comfort/ kinesthetic
body comfort

I think I have an
awareness of the
body. It’s being
Movement-thought

aware of body parts

and posture. And
you find that you can
relationship

use your body

[awareness] to pick
up your own
emotional level
288

Contemporary dance Middle-eastern dance Aerobics

Therese Stella Thyra Ursula Fran Faith Eileen Noni Tina Fiona Viv Sara Eloise Sandra Stephanie
Distribution of the 14 themes according to the three Metacodes

Constructive activity

Active process ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Anticipatory plans ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Finding the body ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Technique ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Organizing point ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
APPENDIX VI:

Abstract concepts ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Movement- ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
thought
relationship

The body reservoir

The unconscious ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Plasticity ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Reflective emotion ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Impulse or need ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
to move

Social constraints and effects

Framing the ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
setting

Social ideal ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Transcendence ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
289