Body image

The body image is the idea of one's own body . It is the part of the body experience that includes formal knowledge , fantasies , thoughts , attitudes , evaluations and ascriptions of meanings regarding the body. The body image is closely connected to the self-image that the ideas about one's person contains.

In the past , phenomenological research related to the subjective experience of the body was characterized by poorly defined terminology and methodological deficiencies. In particular, the term body image has been used in very different forms in the specialist literature to describe a large number of body-related phenomena - partly as a generic term, but also in the description of different aspects of the body experience. This resulted in considerable problems in defining the differentiation from other common technical terms , which is why a terminological classification of the various aspects of body experience was worked out for the German-speaking area at the beginning of the 2000s .

The term body image is used to summarize the cognitively determined, multi-dimensional aspects of experience and evaluation that affect the body . These aspects depend on social and cultural influences and are primarily to be recorded through interpersonal and biographical factors. For the aspect of attitudes and evaluations, the respective cultural context with the specific body-related social manners and normative determinants is also essential. In contrast to what is seen, for example, by psychodynamic theory, the body image is more than a mere 'imago of the body' or 'phantasmatic representation', but the result of all cognitive- evaluative influences on the whole body experience.

literature

Frank Röhricht et al .: Consensus paper on terminological delimitation of partial aspects of body experience in research and practice. In: Psychotherapie Psychosomatik Medical Psychologie , January 3, 2005, pp. 183–190, PMID 15800812 , doi: 10.1055 / s-2004-834551 ( online )