Thomas Fuchs Corporealized and Disembodied Minds A Phenomenological View of the Body in Melancholia and Schizophrenia

نویسنده

  • Thomas Fuchs
چکیده

The article starts with a phenomenological account of the implicit functioning of the body in everyday perception and performance, turning the physical body into a living medium of the subject’s relation to the world. This transparency of the body is conceptualized as a mediated immediacy, based on the coupling and synthesis of single elements of perception and movement to form the integrated intentional arcs by which we are directed toward the world. However, this mediacy of embodied consciousness is vulnerable to disturbances of the mediating processes involved, leading to different forms of opacity of the body and, subsequently, an alienation of the self from the world. Thus, the body may regain its pure materiality and turn into an obstacle; this is the case in severe depression, which may be described as a reification or corporealization of the lived body. On the other hand, the subject may also be detached from the mediating processes that it normally embodies, resulting in what may be called a disembodied mind; this condition is often found in schizophrenic patients. The loss of the implicit or transparent structure of the body is described in both contrasting cases, with special emphasis on disturbances of embodied intersubjectivity.

برای دانلود رایگان متن کامل این مقاله و بیش از 32 میلیون مقاله دیگر ابتدا ثبت نام کنید

ثبت نام

اگر عضو سایت هستید لطفا وارد حساب کاربری خود شوید

منابع مشابه

The Coceivability of a Disembodied Personal Life Beyond Death Based on David Lund’s Views

As science focuses exclusively on the physical, it seems to assume that the brain has a key role in the origin if not also the constitution of our consciousness; and thus the destruction of the brain, the nervous system, and the body makes it pointless or even absurd to think of any personal consciousness after death. But one need not be convinced by this. However, any effort to investigate a p...

متن کامل

Disturbance of Intentionality: A Phenomenological Study of Body-Affecting First-Rank Symptoms in Schizophrenia

OBJECTIVES In 1950, Kurt Schneider proposed that a considerable number of schizophrenia patients develop first-rank symptoms (FRS). In such cases, patients report made experiences, replaced control of will, thought insertion, broadcast or withdrawal and delusional perception, respectively. Although a number of recent studies tend to explain FRS in terms of neurobiological and neuropsychological...

متن کامل

The ghost in the machine: disembodiment in schizophrenia--two case studies.

The notion of embodiment is central to the phenomenological approach to schizophrenia. This paper argues that fundamental concepts for the understanding of schizophrenia have a bodily dimension. We present 2 single cases of first-onset schizophrenic patients and analyze the reports of their experiences. Problems such as loss of self, loss of common sense, and intentionality disorders reveal a d...

متن کامل

The Phenomenology of Shame, Guilt and the Body in Body Dysmorphic Disorder and Depression

From a phenomenological viewpoint, shame and guilt may be regarded as emotions which have incorporated the gaze and the voice of the other, respectively.The spontaneous and unreected performance of the primordial bodily self has suffered a rupture: In shame or guilt we are rejected, separated from the others, and thrown back on ourselves. This reective turn of spontaneous experience is connec...

متن کامل

ذخیره در منابع من


  با ذخیره ی این منبع در منابع من، دسترسی به آن را برای استفاده های بعدی آسان تر کنید

عنوان ژورنال:

دوره   شماره 

صفحات  -

تاریخ انتشار 2005