Let's Get Personal, Let's Get Physical: Approaching the Bodily Self in Clinical Interactions.

Medicine and psychotherapy typically treat the body as a biological machine or ignore it entirely, focusing on genes, brain scans, or personality and cognition. However, the intersection where being a person and having a body—the bodily self—is crucial for illness, health, and recovery. This paper briefly summarizes embodiment and enactivism, then suggests practical approaches for clinical diagnostics that integrate the bodily self.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Medicine usually looks at the body as a biochemical and physical apparatus - from a distant third-person perspective, with fragmented, reductionist positions, unidirectional causal models, and highly selective foci. Even psychiatrists and psychotherapists focus more and more on the brain as an organ, look at genes and colourful pictures. And just as biomedical medicine stares at physical and chemical facts and ignores the person, one could say that psychotherapy stares at personality, cognition, and behaviour and ignores the body. But the lowlands where being-a-person and having-a-body meetmatter a lot for becoming ill, staying, and getting well. What attitudes and what approaches can help us understand the bodily self? After very briefly summarizing current understandings of embodiment and enactivism, we will suggest some practical consequences for everyday clinical diagnostics.