'Embodiment' as well as the different manners in which the body is perceived, influence how health care is planned and executed in society. This essay will discuss the perspective of embodiment, as well as the different ways of thinking about the body (as an individual body, social body, and body politic), and how a better understanding can benefit health care practitioners in South Africa.
Embodiment deals with the idea of life as an ethereal term; that it exists in everything. There has been much speculation within the medical field with regards to embodiment. This is because different models of health care are used to treat patients, and as a result create different viewpoints. Csordas (1994, p.8), says that "the mind and body are separate entities when dealing with health and healing". This can be linked to the biomedical and psychosocioenvironmental models of health. It is important to understand the relationship between the mind and body when dealing with "healing and health" (duality or holism). When thinking of the body it is also important to consider theories such as universalism and particularism, so that we are able to generate a more comprehensive understanding.
We often think of the body in a solitary sense. However, the term "body" can actually be translated as a collective system, or a totality of something. This is often due to the fact that it is a structure that is frequently re-imagined due to fluctuating aspects. The body is divided into "three bodies". These are the individual body, the social body, and the body politic.
The individual body is the first of the "three bodies". It is explained through the "lived experience of the body". The "individual body is understood in a phenomenological sense" (Schep...
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...how health care is integrated and executed in society. The perspective of embodiment, as well as the different ways of thinking about the body (as an individual body, social body, and body politic), can lead to a better understanding of health care that will be beneficial to health care practitioners in South Africa.
Works Cited
• Csordas, T. J., 1994. Introduction: the body as representation and being in the world. In: Embodiment and Experience: The existential ground of culture and self. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-24.
• Saltonstall, R., 1993. Healthy Bodies, Social Bodies: Men's and Women's Concepts and Practices of Health in Everyday Life. Social Science & Medicine, 36(1), pp. 7-14.
• Scheper-Hughes, N. & Lock, M. M., 1987. The Mindful Body: A Prolegomenon to Future Work in Medical Anthropology. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 1(1), pp. 6-41.
Thus, embodiment is the conscious perception of the “it” in opposition to “me.” “It’ has no feelings or personal agency. “Me,” though, is present. Embodiment is “being a body” and also consciously owning the body. Cleopatra’s change into a Freak is a loss, as it is unintentional. The extent of her power is not competent enough, though. Kertesz’s idea of himself changes as his embodiment does. They digress from existence as a “me” to “it.” “It” is the oppressive other’s view of the different individual: an “it” that “me” (the institution) can gain power over. When the institution gains control of another body, it embodies this body with itself, resulting in a death of the person that previously embodied it.
The body repeats the landscape. They are the source of each other and create each other. We were marked by the seasonal body of earth, by the terrible migrations of people, by the swift turn of a century, verging on change never before experienced on this greening planet.
The reading assigned titled “The Socially Constructed Body” by Judith Lorber and Yancey Martin dives into the sociology of gender with a specific focus on how the male and female body is compromised by social ideals in the Western culture. She introduces the phenomenon of body ideals pressed on men and women by introducing the shift in cosmetic surgery toward body modifications.
The differences of mind and soul have intrigued mankind since the dawn of time, Rene Descartes, Thomas Nagel, and Plato have addressed the differences between mind and matter. Does the soul remain despite the demise of its material extension? Is the soul immaterial? Are bodies, but a mere extension of forms in the physical world? Descartes, Nagel, and Plato agree that the immaterial soul and the physical body are distinct entities.
the body. The notions and events that occur in the essay provoked emotional responses ranging
Marcel Mauss in his work Techniques of the Body (1934) is regarded as the first piece of work to outline a systematic anthropology of the body (Synnott 1993). It aims to show evidence that most everyday body techniques differ between people raised in different environments, as they have a different way of life that requires a different set of skills. According to Mauss all ordinary activities such as walking, running, swimming, resting are not just techniques we are naturally equipped with but are instead culturally acquired. The aim of this paper is to critically assess Mauss’ argument that techniques of the body constitute culture. This will be done by looking at what is defined as culture in the context that Mauss refers to. An analysis of Mauss’ examples of “body techniques” given in his paper will then begin, whilst also drawing on current examples. Mauss’ work will then be compared to other writers in the field of ‘the body’ such as Elias and Goffman.
M.D. “Body Image: A Clouded Reality”. Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self Knowledge 2.2 (2004): 58-65 pg. Web. 18 Nov 2013.
Thus it enables a state of being that is in the moment (it is present). The aesthetical (in terms of material aspects) of the body are also something that is a definite variable. When the body undergoes ‘embodiment’ it is the process of the locus, culture, traditions, biological traits of the body (sex, race) that plays a role in the construction of this experience (which happens on a daily basis) and at the same time simultaneously confines it (2009:3). ‘Embodiment’ is forever shifting and growing; as one’s experiences are continuously happening and thus making it a highly subjective experience as well (2009: 4). This process then allows the body to become something that is more than just a biological construct; it allows the body to become something that is able to express itself unto other beings in both words (the patterns developed when one is speaking and the language styles that one has been influenced to use) and non-verbal communication (the shape and form the body takes when moving in space or even sitting or standing still in a space drawn from experienced emotions and the person’s historical, social and political background). Therefore it is suggested that ‘embodiment’ is something that is a network of interlinked signs showing past experiences and continuously reshaping and forming to show new signs based on new experience (Thapan 2009:
The mind being the main control of the body. Many individuals have problems connecting the two due to consciousness of the mind and how it makes us who we are and that having no connection with our body. We do have strategies and ways to see how our mind and body works but not necessary our consciousness in reasons as why we choose to do certain things, who we are, personality, or even free will. Others can only see our body and how we look but not who we are. If we did have a connection between our mind and body we can assume that it allows us to choose and control our body. If that is the case we would be able to control our bodies and their properties. Feeling pain, hunger, laughter, or is it that the mind can only control portion of the body as sending signals from the brain to our bodies. We don’t connect both because either we create them in our mind we can control them, since its not the case either someone else creates them or something does. I think that the mind is not physical at all but as far as being connected to the body maybe just a portion of it. Because of science we know that we need our bodies to exist or continue to exist. I guess we will never know since we don’t have proof of anyone surviving without their bodies and are here to tell their
The relationship of the human soul and physical body is a topic that has mystified philosophers, scholars, scientists, and mankind as a whole for centuries. Human beings, who are always concerned about their place as individuals in this world, have attempted to determine the precise nature or state of the physical form. They are concerned for their well-being in this earthly environment, as well as their spiritual well-being; and most have been perturbed by the suggestion that they cannot escape the wrongs they have committed while in their physical bodies.
...of the body, and no problem arises of how soul and body can be united into a substantial whole: ‘there is no need to investigate whether the soul and the body are one, any more than the wax and the shape, or in general the matter of each thing and that of which it is the matter; for while “one” and “being” are said in many ways, the primary [sense] is actuality’ (De anima 2.1, 12B6–9).Many twentieth-century philosophers have been looking for just such a via media between materialism and dualism, at least for the case of the human mind; and much scholarly attention has gone into asking whether Aristotle’s view can be aligned with one of the modern alternatives, or whether it offers something preferable to any of the modern alternatives, or whether it is so bound up with a falsified Aristotelian science that it must regretfully be dismissed as no longer a live option.
While the great philosophical distinction between mind and body in western thought can be traced to the Greeks, it is to the influential work of René Descartes, French mathematician, philosopher, and physiologist, that we owe the first systematic account of the mind/body relationship. As the 19th century progressed, the problem of the relationship of mind to brain became ever more pressing.
It is apparent that we are personified entities, but also, that we embrace “more” than just our bodies. “Human persons are physical, embodied beings and an important feature of God’s intended design for human life” (Cortez, 70). But, “human persons have an ‘inner’ dimension that is just as important as the ‘outer’ embodiment” (Cortez, 71). The “inner” element cannot be wholly explained by the “outer” embodiment, but it does give rise to inimitable facets of the human mental life such as human dignity and personal identity.
two distinct kinds of entities, bodies and minds (1). All objects that exist or can exist belong to one of these categories. The two forms are said to be mutually exclusive and commonly defined by fundamentally different characteristics, yet both are required to accurately define the world around us. According to Descartes, the body is a tangible physical substance (the unthinking thing), whereas the mind is an intangible non-physical substance (the thinking thing) and comes metaphysically before the body (3). The mind and body casually interact with one another while maintaining their distinctiveness: the eyes perceive objects and then focus the image to the pineal gland, where it transmits the information to the non-physical mind; the mind then may transmit a signal to the body, telling it what to do. The mind and body are independent from one another, yet they work in harmony; the mind receives signals from the body and the body responds to signals from the mind.
body, the mind and the soul. The body is the physical part of the body