The Body and Psychology

This work provides a range of possibilities, suggestions and manifestos for the importance of the body to the discipline of psychology. Each contributor invites us to consider certain questions and possibilites of psychological and social life that the body opens for revaluation. The body has come to provide a central site for theory and debate from social theory to cultural studies. This important and compelling book looks beyond psychology′s traditional biological body to explore what insights can be gained from recent theories of embodiment. Taking the body as inscribed by social and disciplinary practices, leading contributors explore a wide range of psychological topics in new and challenging ways. Questions surrounding health, gender, history and culture are addressed in contexts such as the psychology of pain, the treatment of anorexia nervosa, and psychology′s relationship to transgender activists. The material in this volume was previously published as a Special Issue of the journal Theory & Psychology.